


Death in a Duster

by ComeHitherAshes



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Alcohol, British!SS, Canon-Typical Violence, Crushes, Developing Relationship, F/M, First Kiss, First Meetings, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hancock Whump, Moral Ambiguity, Mutual Pining, Nephew!Shaun, Protective BAMF Hancock, Recreational Drug Use, SS is a clean bean, Slightly Altered Beginning, Smut, beef jerky tastes good, but they both like, for Hancock, ghoul hanky panky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2018-05-13 08:49:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 128,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5702362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ComeHitherAshes/pseuds/ComeHitherAshes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She's beauty, she's grace, she'll shoot you in the face," Hancock murmured, arms folded over the windowsill as he looked at the street below, at sunlight on pale skin and bullets in place of poker chips. A pair of ridiculous sunglasses looked straight up at him, and he ducked to the soft sound of his name in a familiar accent. "Shit, she saw."</p><p>Fahrenheit rolled her eyes and threw an empty Jet inhaler at him. "You disgust me."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Azure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hancock’s my hero and I need to share that gorgeous ghoul love. Although these two have a back-story each and a shit-load of adventures, this fic just hits the, uh, _major lifts_ of their beginning.
> 
> I like to write what I know, so here’s my Brit surviving in the Commonwealth. Thank you to Victorygin for betaing!

> Now I've heard there was a secret chord  
> That David played, and it pleased the Lord  
> But you don't really care for music, do you?  
> It goes like this  
> The fourth, the fifth  
> The minor fall, the major lift  
> The baffled king composing Hallelujah
> 
> \- Leonard Cohen, _'Hallelujah'_

"Mayor?"

Hancock stayed quiet for a moment, wondering whether he could pretend he wasn't in his room and get away with ignoring yet another audience with a disgruntled citizen.

They were showing up in droves lately, always with some problem or another.

_Oh, Mayor, the power's gone again._

_Oh, Mayor, there's radroaches in the sink._

_Oh, Mayor, Fahrenheit's killed another man and left the body in the street._

Honestly, any tiny issue was blown entirely out of proportion – much like that bloated body left in the street. But really, it wasn't his duty to house-train his people beyond not pissing in corners, was it?

There was a grunt from downstairs, and then a familiar voice yelled, "John! Move your ass, Finn's stirring shit again."

The sigh that escaped Hancock's throat was pained, and his fingers trailed over the cold metal of the Jet inhalers before digging into his own rough palms. "I'm just gonna shoot 'im this time."

Fahrenheit was at the bottom of the stairs, the rust-orange of her hair flat against the open doorway when she murmured, "You always say that."

"That a bet?"

She slid him an amused glance, but he quickly lost her attention to whatever was going on outside. "We've got bets going already, but they're on you."

Hancock frowned, nudging past her and the bristling guards that always roamed the State House. "Me? Why've—?"

He cut himself off when he stepped into the daylight, the wide stretch of azure sky seeming a strange sort of omen after a week of shit weather. It had looked brighter once, but blue was the first colour that had dulled after taking the drug and going ghoul.

It was the one thing he missed.

Hancock's eyes narrowed on the leather-clad back that stepped ever closer to a woman new to their happy-go-lucky town.

"Can't go walkin' around without insurance," dripped from Finn's sleazy mouth, and it was the same line that had earned him a collaring a week ago.

Hancock was happy to give him a pretty fucking permanent reminder.

A light laugh rang through the air, and the stranger leaned into a hip as she looked Finn up and down from behind a pair of ridiculous white sunglasses. "I've wandered the Commonwealth without it, is Goodneighbor such a dangerous place?"

Her accent was strange, smooth, and accompanied by a heavily modded 10mm pistol at her waist, but Finn was too busy lighting his cigarette to notice the way her hand lovingly caressed the grip.

Maybe it was the lack of Jet in his system, but Hancock found it a tiny bit erotic.

"My kinda girl," Hancock murmured, and if he thought he had been about to smile, it turned to a snarl when Finn carelessly blew his smoke in her face. "Now, now, Finn, there's no need for that, she's a guest. Lay off the gangster crap."

Fahrenheit's scoff just about caught his ears. "There he goes, hero in a red fuckin' duster."

Hancock was tempted to glare at her over his shoulder, but that would have ruined his 'hero in a duster' look, so he strolled up to the pair with his arms spread wide, the dust kicking up majestically at his feet with every purposeful tread.

It was a good look for him.

Finn flicked his lit cigarette at Hancock's boots, pock-marked face twisting into a sneer. "You're gettin' soft, Hancock."

Hancock tutted under his breath, his grin more a baring of teeth than anything friendly. "That's _Mayor_ Hancock to you."

For once, Finn didn't back down, and his voice took on a threatening edge, as if he had been listening to Marowski and his goons too closely. "Not for long if you keep lettin' outsiders walk all over us."

Hancock's jaw tensed even as he pasted on a smile, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Fahrenheit lean against a closer wall, offering him the backup he didn't need.

It seemed he had it elsewhere.

The stranger cleared her throat, drawing Finn's attention again. Hancock couldn't tell if she looked at him through those dark lenses, but her cheek twitched when he slid into position in Finn's blind spot. "Does your insurance cover acts of God?"

Finn's bravado faltered for a moment. "God?"

Hancock almost laughed, but she had set him up perfectly and so it seemed only natural to find that sweet point between Finn's ribs with his shiv – a few times, and a few times again. Finn collapsed with a choked, bubbling breath, and the stranger watched him fall with a quietly amused, "Guess not."

Hancock chuckled, the sound rusty with his wrecked vocal chords. It was something he was long-used to, something the ladies liked – fuck ten years of smoking and whiskey, one healthy blast of radiation and _bang,_ prime Silver Shroud voice acting.

A blonde eyebrow rose at him from under an off-kilter broad-brimmed hat, as if she was one of those Minutemen he'd been hearing about lately. "So, Mayor Hancock, is it?"

Hancock wiped his blade on Finn's shitty jacket and flashed her a toothy smile. "I'm good with 'God', too."

Her mouth twisted up at the corner as she ducked her head, giving him the most endearing glance from under that outrageous hat.

Not that he could say much in that department.

"Slip of the tongue."

Hancock's grin widened at the faint flush on those strangely pale cheeks, as if she hadn't been in the sun for a very long time – which, these days, was pretty impossible. "I bet."

She turned slightly then, taking in the town, and he finally saw what the lean length of her had distracted him from.

She had a sniper rifle on her back, properly gripped and long-scoped and gorgeous. When he dragged his eyes from the beauty of it, it was to see her staring at him, something wary in her stance, as if worried he would attack her for it.

It took effort to not hold his hands out and beg for a hold like a kid that wanted candy, like an adult that wanted to lick it.

The gun.

Or was it the candy?

Fuck, he needed some Mentats, and sharpish – preferably the little blueberry ones that Fahrenheit had paid an arm and a leg for, he still had a couple left. Anything to stop him salivating like a collector over an antique.

Hancock managed to nod somewhat nonchalantly at her back. "Point-three-oh-eights?"

"No," she murmured, hand lifting as if to rub her neck but instead stroking along the sniper's barrel as if soothing it – there was a special fetish for that, he was sure, pretty fingers stroking dangerous weapons. "Fifty cal."

Hancock whistled, but he narrowed his eyes at the lack of _stuff_ about her. Most people that rolled through Goodneighbor tended to be weighed down with shit, and although she looked pocketed up to the nines, it couldn't be easy carrying a sweet war machine on your back, let alone one with such specialised gear. "You need ammo?"

There was a nod, but with it was another sweep of her hand, this one along her pistol, as if telling him that she wasn't defenceless, telling him that she could _take him_.

Hancock let his gaze drift to hers a little slower than was proper – but then what was proper in the Commonwealth lately? "Kleo will hook you up, although she might wanna palm 'er, first."

The woman gave him an obstinate look, delicate jaw firming stubbornly. "Greater men have tried."

Hancock chuckled, pleased with her bite. "She ain't no man."

There was a shrug of slim shoulders, and then she brushed past him with a quiet, "Thanks, by the way."

Hancock nudged Finn's lifeless body with his boot, trying to keep her attention for reasons he wasn't going to identify – probably lack of Jet, it was always that. "Eh, you had it covered."

He just about saw the smile that curved her lips before she turned away to the shopfronts, giving him a rather favourable view of her backside as she headed inside.

It wasn't that which held his focus though – not for long, anyway – because Kleo stepped out from the back and the stiffness in the stranger's spine was suddenly palpable. It was hardly surprising, Kleo tended to have that effect on people, which was partly why Hancock didn't just leave them to it.

He didn't think they'd start shooting each other, but it was better to be safe than sorry – which was a phrase a chem-addled ghoul didn't use lightly.

The exchanging of bullets and caps was a proper, respectful one, with wary hands over tables instead of itchy trigger fingers and cliché lines. Hancock listened to the audiobooks on the radio, he knew everyone liked a catchphrase, but fuck if the mobster bullshit wasn't wearing thin.

Every dweller and his dog had a superiority complex these days, and he was just _waiting_ for the next raider gang that asked him if he liked the sight of his own blood.

Maximum points for originality there.

Daisy's laugh ricocheted around the street like gunfire, harsh and happy, which confirmed everything Hancock had already thought.

Daisy needed to laugh more, and the newcomer was of good stock.

After tucking a bullet case into her pocket with a parting comment to Daisy, she walked straight back to him, and he sensed that he was being reproved for staring.

"Can I help you, Mayor Hancock?"

His smile might have been just a bit predatory at that challenging tone, but he was still craving a hit and she looked like she'd give him a good one. "Drop by when you've had your fill of the town, I might have some work for you."

It was clear that she was waiting for him to walk off. She leaned into her hip and flicked the brim on her hat before he did as he was silently told, grin on his face all the way.

He felt her watching, but it was Fahrenheit's low laugh that greeted him when he passed her still standing against the wall.

"She not fall for your charms, John?"

Hancock hissed a laugh as they climbed the stairs. "I must be losin' my touch."

She clapped him on the shoulder patronisingly. "S'fine, I'll buy you a drink with my winnings."

"Your winnings?" Hancock asked in confusion, but glared when he saw her tossing a palmful of caps back and forth. "What the fuck've you lot been doing?"

"I told you, betting."

"On?"

Fahrenheit let him walk ahead as she said slyly, "On whether our gallant mayor would go to the pretty girl's rescue."

When Hancock flung himself onto a chair to roll his eyes at her, Kelvin stormed through the doorway with a muttered, "Fahr got extra on you stabbing Finn."

Hancock had just about chosen his high of choice when he had to glance up in surprise at that. "I thought you said I wouldn't?"

Fahrenheit's smile was smug. "I said you _haven't,_ I knew you would for her."

"Am I gettin' so predictable? Maybe I need a break from this shit."

Fahrenheit joined him on the sofa, accepting the chem inhaler he tossed her way as Kelvin stood guard outside. "Then how would I get my caps betting on your wannabe-hero persona?"

Hancock took a deep breath of Jet, savouring the slight sting of artificially cooled air and the taste of gunmetal. "Y'know," he commented lazily, head tipping back to look at the swirling ceiling, "you're lucky I've filled my stab quota for today."

Fahrenheit's laugh seemed to stretch with every rise of his chest, and Hancock closed his eyes to see a pair of ridiculous sunglasses and a sly smile on the ridged insides of his eyelids.

Those hadn't been there before.

Radiation was a bitch.

 

* * *

 

"I'd kill for a Bulmers," Pen muttered under her breath as she stepped into the Third Rail, the close air settling around her like a second skin. If there was one thing that hadn't changed even after two centuries, it was that slightly stale, musty scent of pubs.

It smelled like home, even if this one was tinged with motor oil and the now-familiar tang of Gwinnett Ale.

A Mr. Handy reared up in front of her, one eye-stalk perilously close to her own considerably stalk-less ones, and immediately quizzed her on British ciders with an accent painfully familiar, the slang reminiscent of east rather than her west.

At least she could say with a certainty that there was one person in this town without an ulterior motive – unless that motive was selling her alcohol and getting her homesick.

Goodneighbor hadn't been anything like she had expected – but then again, she should have learned not to take gossip at face value by now. Settlers were never having "a small issue" with super mutants, and old buildings were never "abandoned."

The next time Preston told her that a settlement needed a hand, she was dragging his two along with her. It wasn't worth losing an arm over – or her hat, as had almost happened the last time she had come across a farm needing the Minutemen's help.

Goodneighbor didn't need her, not with Hancock at the helm – and he had a suitable hat for the job, too.

Pen sank into her chair, fingers clasped around a Nuka Cola as she enjoyed the sultry tones of the talented bar singer – come-one-come-all karaoke this was not.

Then again, John Hancock was no normal mayor, either.

Pen didn't need to know a lot about American history to recognise that name, nor fashion to recognise the coat. It was a toss up to call him a pirate or a cowboy, but he had the bearing of both; steady in a storm and the first to find one. The cocky swagger aside, he was confident in the same way that Preston was, that Danse was, confident in the path they had forged in their world.

It was strange how three men managed to fight for what was right whilst going about it in entirely different ways. It might have been funny if it wasn't so fucking tragic, mind, because they would probably hate each other.

Ghouls continued to shock her, but they were still human, still trying to survive in a world that ravaged and reviled them.

One of them had still managed to make her smile.

Before Pen could think about slate-grey eyes more than she should, one of Hancock's people walked past, obvious in the frown on her brow and the gun in her hands, and Pen waited for the inevitable summons that didn't come.

Odd.

Ah, but narrowed eyes turned to look at her, and then the woman quite clearly grilled Charlie on something too quietly for Pen to hear.

With a snort, Pen downed the rest of her criminally flat drink and rolled to her feet. Hancock needed to employ better spies, but if he had questions, he only had to ask.

Everyone else always did.

Perhaps a normal person would have avoided a town labelled as _on the wrong side of the law,_ but the rest of the bloody Commonwealth seemed to be in the exact same place, at least Goodneighbor admitted it.

In times like these, Pen appreciated a bit of blunt honesty.

To think, only a few months ago she had been cosied up on another continent and enjoying the gentle pitter-patter of rain on the green grass. Now it was the pitter-patter of gunfire and the only green was the rolling rad storms.

Radiation was a bitch.

 

* * *

 

Hancock groaned at the sound of boots on his stairs, at muffled talking in the hallway, at Fahrenheit shoving him on the thigh.

"Sister, please," he mumbled into the threadbare sofa, which only earned him another shove.

"Your damsel's coming."

There was a brief surge of interest, his brow bone digging into the cushion as it lifted, but then he moved slightly and remembered how fucking comfy naps were. "If she ain't in distress, I can sleep more."

Fahrenheit yawned, "I'd say she was pretty distressed."

Hancock fidgeted until he could frown at her, one eye opening to see her running a hand through the short shock of her hair. "Why?"

"She's been bitching to Kelvin for about five minutes, something about Charlie."

The realisation clicked in his head like a lightbulb, fizzing and sputtering with power. " _That's_ what her accent reminded me of, weird."

Fahrenheit gave him an odd look as he struggled to his feet, stretching out the aches and pains of sleeping in a chair. "I thought Charlie was from somewhere across the Glowing Sea?"

"Not just the Glowing Sea, the _actual_ sea."

"Seriously?"

Hancock nodded, idly debating whether to take a pick-me-up after their chemical cocktail earlier. One more drug couldn't hurt, right? "Yeah, Daisy said it was a novelty thing to give robots accents from other places before the war."

Fahrenheit looked sceptical, but she laughed quietly when Kelvin could be heard stammering excuse after excuse. "Delisle came by, she said she kept to herself, had a drink, paid in caps, nice and quiet."

"Quiet's boring," he muttered distractedly, wondering where his hat had got to.

"You were complaining things were _too_ quiet yesterday."

"It's a different sort of quiet, this place is busy in politics, quiet in gunfire."

"I'm sure we can combine the two," Fahrenheit said with a laugh that meant a fuckton of more disgruntled citizens and a bloated body in the street for good measure. "I'll let her in. Oh, if you're renewing your efforts at seeming mysterious, her name's Pen."

Hancock slid her a conspiratorial smile. "You know me too well."

"Mayor Predictable," Fahrenheit taunted as she crouched to pick up his hat, throwing it at him as she walked past. "Don't ruin your look."

Hancock slipped it onto his head with a grin. "Wouldn't want that."

He was deliberately relaxing in his chair when she walked in, a breath of fresh air amidst the hazy, low-hanging smoke, and he couldn't help but think that _Pen_ was too simple for her.

"Is 'Pen' a codename?"

Blunt, that was his creed.

She didn't seem surprised that he knew her name, instead she wandered around his room and looked out of his windows, seeing Goodneighbor from up high – or maybe she was looking for good sniping posts, who knew. "It wouldn't be a very good one if I told you, would it?"

That made him crack a laugh, and he was still hoping she would like the sound of it. "Hey, I can't say much for names, I appropriated mine."

She tossed him a glance that, coupled with the curl of her lip, seemed a little heated – at least, it might have been if he could fucking see her eyes. "Appropriated, good word."

"Well, I was gonna say _'earned,'_ but p'raps it's a bit soon for that."

Pen hummed noncommittally and sat down on the sofa opposite him, the low table between them and a spread of azure sky at her back. Hancock wanted her to take off the sunglasses, not for any other reason than a selfish one, but she simply leaned her elbows on her knees and crossed her slim wrists. "You said you had work for me?"

Straight down to business, a shame.

"Sure, it don't pay much but—"

"I don't want caps."

Hancock paused, blinking at the interruption and surprising statement both. It wasn't often he had someone willing to do pro-bono jobs, and he had a feeling this one wasn't going to, either. "Well, what do you want?"

"Information."

Hancock would have wrinkled his nose in distaste if he'd had one. "What kind?"

"Tourist," she sighed, and examined a string of metal beads around her wrist, a pair of dog tags clinking between her slender fingers. "I'm looking for something, and I think I need help."

Hancock had to stop himself from asking for her life story, but the Jet had already left his system and he had been so _bored_ lately.

It was in his nature to help – whether or not he had half a mind to grab his shotgun and follow her out of the door – but even if she hadn't specified wanting only information and not another pair of hands, something told him this wasn't a simple retrieval mission, and it was the sudden exhaustion that tightened her limbs.

"This actually a some _one_ you're lookin' for?"

It regained her attention, and he wondered if those mysterious eyes were glaring at him. "Why?"

"'Cause then you'll need a detective, an' I know just the guy."

"Okay," she said slowly, wary all of a sudden. "What's the job?"

"I ain't making you work for me just for somethin' you could hear on the street," Hancock replied, almost offended that she would think him so mercurial. "Nick Valentine, over in Diamond City."

He could just about see the flutter of her eyelashes behind the glasses, and felt a little smug that he had surprised her.

It felt better when she murmured, "Oh, well, thank you."

He inclined his head in humble acknowledgement, and then his curiosity got the better of him. "Were you a vault dweller?"

That tell-tale twitch curved the edges of her lips. "Is it that obvious?"

A grin curved his own, pleased at being able to figure something out about her. "If the Pip-Boy hadn't given it away, you've got one of those looks about you."

"Oh?"

"Yeah," he said, and smiled at his own joke. "Fresh faced."

"Hilarious," she replied, dead-pan, and he wanted to see her eyes more than ever, to see if her amusement glimmered there.

Fuck, this must be what it's like when people were trying to read _him._

Hancock cleared his throat, once again trying to keep her attention, keep her _here. "_ So, with my great skills—"

"Of deduction?"

His chuckle made her smile properly, and it was a parting of lips that those pre-war novelists would have called a _cupid's bow,_ pink and perfect. "Yeah, I'm also guessin' you're with the Minutemen?"

The hat she drew off, but those glasses stayed in place as she gently rubbed the brim of the worn thing, familiarity and fondness in it. "I actually found this before I found them, but yes."

That might be an interesting tit bit of information, he just had to hope these Minutemen of hers weren't eyeing Goodneighbor – at the end of the day, it was some prime real estate. Still, they were meant to be the good guys of the Commonwealth, and Pen didn't seem the type to start turfing people out of their homes.

He wanted to believe that there were more good guys out there, he really did.

"So now you're wanderin' the Commonwealth, helpin' people out? That's admirable."

The smile she gave him was a slightly bitter one. "Call it penance."

Hancock knew better than to pry, and so he only nodded slightly. "I know a bit about that," was all he said, and suffered the grateful silence for as long as he could. "You gonna tell me anything about who you're lookin' for?"

"No," she said simply, and smiled when he did. "What?"

"I knew you'd say that."

Her smile widened when he shrugged. "So why ask?"

"Don't ask, don't get."

Her scoff was surprisingly delicate for someone with guns strapped to their body – even if that body did look a little underfed and dangerously slender with it. "An excellent motto for the mayor of a town of rejects and rascals."

"I'm no reject," he insisted, only half-playfully, and she hummed in agreement, the sound low and teasing as she tipped her hat at him and walked out of the room.

"Good day, Mayor."

Hancock watched the door swing shut with a soft rasp of a laugh.

 _Rascal._ He could live with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You have no idea how hard it is to write Goodneighbor without the 'u', but I hope you found it an easy read! Catch me on [Tumblr](http://comehitherashes.tumblr.com) for questions and ~~chems~~ chats!


	2. Liberty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This entire first scene is solely down to how *I* dealt with the Sole Survivor's backstory, it may not be to other's tastes, and I may not ever write the "rescue," but Hancock needed to know, and now, well, so will you. You're welcome to ask for headcanon and questions over at my [Tumblr!](http://comehitherashes.tumblr.com)

> Your faith was strong but you needed proof  
>  You saw her bathing on the roof  
>  Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you  
>  She tied you to a kitchen chair  
>  She broke your throne, and she cut your hair  
>  And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
> 
> \- Leonard Cohen, _'Hallelujah'_

Two weeks passed before Hancock was drawn out of a drug-induced daze to the sound of those oddly lyrical tones through his doors, a smoother version of Charlie's sarcasm cutting through his guards like a sword would.

With one hand he checked that his hat was still on his head, and with the other he swiped a Daytripper off the table and popped it in his mouth, needing the confidence boost when his stomach fluttered oddly.

He had to pause when it felt like he was going to choke. Irradiated throat was one thing, dry mouth was another, and the pill was currently trying to lodge its way between his tonsils.

This really wasn't the time to look like an idiot choking on a fucking chem.

Hancock whirled, scrabbling for his desk and yanking open a drawer to rummage for some water, the setting sun stealing all the light from the room. Naturally, it was at that exact moment that his door opened and he properly heard the voice that had been haunting him for a fortnight.

"You know, you don't exactly give _easy_ information."

The plastic bottle rolled away from his grasping fingers so his reply was distracted. "It was Diamond City, what trouble could you get into—"

He choked on the water when he finally saw her.

The hat was still there, the glasses too, the rifle was safe – thankfully – but the rest of her was, well, _battered._ There was a red-raw cut across the right of her jaw, scuffs on her leathers, and some sort of burn mark on the back of her right hand.

"What the fuck happened to you?"

Pen fell into a chair, the same one she had sat in before, as if she had subconsciously claimed it. "Nick Valentine – great tip, by the way, did you know it takes a detective to find a detective? I had to hunt him down, which, let me tell you, wasn't a walk in the park."

Hancock had to disagree there, all the parks he had ever been to were filled with raiders or synths, and so it sounded exactly like a walk in the park to him.

Pen flicked the brim of her hat up to peer curiously at him, that same blue stretch of sky as her backdrop through the window. "He had some good things to say about you, mind."

As he took the seat opposite her, Hancock spread his hands and wondered what she thought of him. "What can I say? I make an impression everywhere I go."

"Or don't go," she remarked when he put his feet up on the table – a very worn, _much loved_ table as of late. "Mayor."

Hancock knew he could count the cracks in the ceiling and the scuffs on the floor, so he shrugged and admitted, "Yeah, s'been a while, I won't lie; ain't really had the liberty to leave."

"You need to get out more," Pen teased, and he had to wonder if she knew how right she was.

He was practically itching in his skin to go wandering again, especially now that even Travis from the radio had picked up the pace. It seemed as if he was the only one still cooling his heels.

Although maybe mayoral madness ran in the family. "Did you like Diamond City?"

"It's a xenophobic pit," Pen muttered vehemently, and glanced at him when he started to laugh. "What?"

"Has Goodneighbor spoiled you with our welcomin' of rejects an' rascals?"

"Yes!" Pen tried adamantly not to smile, but it peeked through when she added, "The _Stands?_ Come on, like living slightly higher than someone else makes you better than them."

It wasn't as if he wanted to kiss her for saying that, but if it happened then he wasn't saying no – he _did_ have a painfully embarrassing recollection of calling her lips a _cupid's bow,_ after all.

For now, he settled with a roguish grin. "Why d'you think I'm not on the top floor?"

"Because you're clearly a sensitive man."

"Ghoul," he corrected with a smile, but hers faded slightly.

"Yes, sorry."

"No harm," he assured, but for some reason she didn't relax, and he could feel her eyes on him even if he still couldn't see them. The friendliness she had breezed in with seemed to disappear, almost as if they had been old friends at first, and now they were strangers again. "Not that it ain't a treat to see you, but why'd you come back?"

Pen gave him another of her under-the-brim looks, the one where her lip twitched and she tried not to let it. "I was curious about that job offer."

"So it wasn't 'cause you missed my rugged good looks?"

"Maybe a little."

Hancock barked a surprised laugh having half-expected her not to join in, and judging from the hesitancy in her grin, it had surprised her too. "Sure, but I got a question. The guys have been bettin', on you, specifically."

"I hadn't realised I'd caused such a stir," she replied dryly, but he was fairly certain he'd won her over someway along the line, so he couldn't be blamed for teasing her.

"With your fresh face an' Charlie-voice?"

A snicker bubbled from her lips, one that sounded almost as unused as his. "What are the stakes?"

Hancock cleared his throat, unable to deny the anticipation that had built in her absence, a hunger for knowledge that went far beyond hidden eyes and pretty rifles. "Charlie's been tellin' everyone you're from some other country, but unless you've got a vertibird hidden away somewhere, that's gotta be impossible, right?"

Pen looked as if she was about to answer him, but then added slyly, "What are _your_ stakes?"

 _Oh,_ whispered delightedly through his head, _I'm followin' you outta here._

"I think you're a mystery," he said easily, but he leaned towards her without thinking. "No one with a rifle like yours just puts on an accent for shits an' giggles. So I figure it's gotta be a vault thing, but the thought of a bunch of people with your voice is gonna empty Goodneighbor as they try to find 'em."

"I _think_ that's a compliment."

"I call 'em as I see 'em, or hear 'em, in this case," he replied, matter-of-fact and flirtatious with it, and decided not to tell her that her voice had wormed its way into his dreams and he was starting to think it the sexiest thing he had ever heard.

A faint flush spread over her cheeks as if she had heard him, but then she gave him a half nod. "You're right, in a way, but it was just me in there with this voice."

"One of a kind?"

The flush deepened, and he loved it, especially where it skipped the scar down her cheek, leaving it a pale line like lightning through clouds. "If you want to put it so poetically, but the vault I was in wasn't normal, shall we say."

"Are any of 'em? The stories I've been gettin' are crazy – you ever met anyone called Gary?"

Pen's brow furrowed, unfortunately leeching the flush away. "No, but then everyone else in my vault is dead."

Hancock paused, unable to test the moment when he couldn't properly see her expression, but she was still angled towards him, still _there,_ so he took it as encouragement to ask, "Oh, shit, what happened?"

"It was a cryogenic stasis vault," she answered, somewhat casually but for the slightly empty tone. "I was a lollipop for over two hundred years."

Hancock heard his jaw pop as it fell. "Fuck me, you're pre-war?"

The smile she offered him was bitter as she quoted his words from two weeks ago, "Fresh-faced."

"But for some freezer burn, yeah, fuck." He was repeating himself, he knew that, but _fuck._ "So, what, you just woke up?"

"Pretty much."

It was too vague of a reply, but he wasn't going to demand more when she was already going above and beyond what he deserved.

Still, she had chosen to come back here, to talk to him, and damn her for feeding his addiction, so he jerked his head at her rifle, hungry for more knowledge. "But you carry that gun so easily, what the fuck d'you do back then?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Hancock ran a hand over his head before resettling his hat. "At this rate, I'm wonderin' if I'm high anyway."

She snorted, leaning back to answer simply, "Paintball."

"What?"

"Paintball, you put these little pellets of paint in guns and shoot with them, like shooting rubber bullets."

A part of him wanted to deny her, to chalk it up to an overdose – because surely one of them was flying right now – but what would she gain from lying, and what would he gain from calling her on it?

What had they gained back then from pretending to shoot at people, when now it wasn't simple paint?

"Nothin' like the real thing," he murmured, and although her smile was haunted, she relaxed at his belief, at his trust.

"No, indeed."

The silence was full of sound, of remembered sound, that familiar _pop-pop_ of pistols and _crash_ of shotguns, and Hancock wondered what those mysterious eyes had seen after two centuries of sleep, what they had seen before.

"That doesn't explain what you were doin' over here, what you're doin' now."

"Surviving, somewhat," Pen muttered, and then her fingers came up to fiddle with the dog tags still hanging about her left wrist. "As to what I was doing in the Wealths, well, here's where it gets complicated."

Hancock mimicked her posture subconsciously and gave a huff of surprise. "It's scary that _this_ ain't already complicated."

"Terrifying," she replied with an exhausted laugh, still focused on those metal strips as she weaved a little more of a tapestry made with 200-year-old threads. "My brother lived here, he came over for a holiday, met a girl, got married, had a kid," her fingers clenched, "they were in a car crash."

Hancock stayed silent, unsure what to say to a life he had never known, would never know – even pre-war ghouls like Daisy kept quiet about their lives, those last few memories as precious as Quantum.

"A car crash, that was what most people died of back then, not fucking bombs—" Pen cut herself off with a forcibly steady breath, but her limbs stayed tense. "My nephew, Shaun, survived. I was Nate's next-of-kin, and the daft idiot hadn't changed his will, so when I got the call about the crash, I was also told that I had to fly over and look after my baby nephew whilst the courts worked everything out."

Pen's face twisted slightly, disappointment and regret lining her mouth. "I don't know anything about kids, but he was entrusted to me for two weeks. I had to leave my dog," she blurted with something like a laugh, but it sounded far too sad to be one. "One week of driving on the wrong side of the road, and then the bombs fell."

Hancock could almost feel the memory in the way she shifted her weight, from comfortable to cramped, but still she forged on, glaring intently at the tags on her wrist.

"I was trying to read Nate's handwriting to find the vault he was signed up to, and Shaun cried and cried and cried. I don't know whether he knew something was wrong, but I couldn't get him to stop. There was another woman in the vault, she offered to hold him whilst I changed into the jumpsuit. Shaun stopped crying immediately."

Pen's jaw clenched, something keen in her voice as she insisted, "I thought it was a lift, I thought they were little pods to take us below-ground. If I'd known they were cryo chambers—"

She shook her head, forehead creasing deeply before it smoothed out, but the rest of her body didn't. "I let that woman hold him, and when I thawed, somebody took him. I saw them shoot that poor woman and _take_ him, and then I went under again."

That was the guilt that lay heavy on her shoulders and about her wrist, the penance she was paying; a promise to a nephew she barely knew.

"That was two hundred years ago," he reasoned, forcing his rough voice to softness. "Your week's long over."

A pale hand came up to her brow, pulling her glasses off with one hand and gripping at her temples with another. Hancock tilted his head, trying to see the eyes he had waited so long to see, and had to inhale a reverent breath when she looked up at last.

They were blue and bottomless, like a stretch of cloudless sky without a single hint of rads, sky that he hadn't seen properly in five long years.

He saw it now.

"Is it over?"

Hancock had to stop himself from staring at her, at the fairly fresh scar that stretched from her left temple down to her jaw, at the pretty pink of her lips and the brilliant blue of her eyes; she was like one of those perfectly preserved cakes in a Port-A-Diner.

This must be what it was like when people met their first ghoul.

But no ghoul looked like she did.

"Times've changed, Pen," he murmured, and her mouth parted ever-so-slightly at the sound of her name in his radiation-ruined voice, so at odds to her pure pre-war one.

"So have I," she replied quietly, but where he worried that regret tinged her words, it was actually determination that firmed them, and he saw the steel that lined her spine and the gleam that iced her eyes.

 _Fuck,_ but she was beautiful.

"You survived, s'all that matters."

The ice melted a little, and without her glasses he could see it, that and the surprisingly shy smile. "Thanks."

She fascinated him.

Hancock wanted to ask her more questions, for more stories, for more of _her_ , but the moment was slipping away like consciousness on a Jet bender, and there was nothing he could do.

"So, tell me about—" Pen cut herself off with a wince as she tried to stand. She almost over-balanced but steadied before he could move. "Mind if we have a rain-check? Still haven't walked off my last encounter."

"I'm in no rush," he replied amiably, trying to hide his concern, but his attention arrowed on the hand splayed across her thigh. "You all right?"

Pen waved him off automatically, as if she had done it not long ago, and he wondered who else in the Commonwealth was worrying about her. "Nothing a good night's sleep won't fix. Do you know anywhere?"

"There's the, ah… Rexford, but last I heard, they were full." It was a lie, and she glanced at him as if she suspected it, but he never had been comfortable sending women to Marowski's, even if Pen did look like she'd blow a man's brains out if he tried anything.

Even if he did rather like that thought.

"We have beds upstairs," he offered honestly, hoping she would choose to stay, "lot of 'em are used by the drifters here, but there should be one or two spare."

Pen raised an eyebrow at him, finally letting the death-grip on her thigh go. "Not going to offer me your own bed? I'm appalled."

Hancock raised a brow in amused confusion. "I thought you'd say no."

"I thought if you don't ask, you don't get?"

"Nice." Hancock ducked his head as he laughed, the sound as rusty as ever. "You can have mine?"

"No, you rascal," Pen replied immediately, and left before he could say anything, left without calling him mayor this time.

Hancock's smile grew into a grin.

He _really_ liked being a rascal.

 

* * *

 

Pen did not go upstairs, she didn't even head for a bed, she walked straight out of the building and headed for The Third Rail, a low level whine of panic thrumming through her throat.

She flinched when Ham stepped out of the shadows, clearly too exhausted to keep her guard up – but she had known it was low before this, and all because of a friendly smile under impossible eyes.

Ham raised his hands, looking almost as surprised as she was that he'd managed to get the jump on her. "Sorry, didn't realise it was you."

Pen peered at him, wondering why he looked odd, and tried to offer a smile that came out more like a grimace. "I didn't realise I was a regular."

She rubbed the bridge of her nose and suddenly realised what was amiss. It wasn't Ham that looked odd, it was because she wasn't wearing her sunglasses and she could finally see the same orange colour of his skin that Hancock had – but Ham didn't have his charm.

_Charm?_

"You ain't," Ham answered obliviously, "but the Mayor says you're good."

Pen didn't know what to say to that, didn't know what to do about the smile that almost curved her lips when she thought of a man who had ensured she was welcomed.

_Not man, ghoul._

The smile disappeared, and Pen pushed past into the bar proper, slumping onto a bar stool as she tried to organise her thoughts.

She hadn't truly noticed at first; the sunglasses didn't just hide her from them, but them from her. All she had seen was a man who ran his town with an iron fist, a face which looked as if it had been smashed by one.

Hancock didn't have a nose, _he didn't have a nose._

Pen's mouth moved before she could help it. "How does he smell? Shut up, Pen."

"What was that, ma'am?"

Pen looked up from the counter to see Charlie far closer than he needed to be, as usual, and huffed a sigh into his eye-stalk. "Vodka and Cola, please, Chaplin."

Charlie whirred happily with a tip of his bowler hat. "Coming right up, ma'am."

Pen was three deep gulps in before she realised that someone had slid into the next seat and was giving her an amused once over, voice like the growl of a cement mixer.

"You all right there, doll?"

Daisy, still in her suit and sipping from something foul-smelling and strong, leaned a little into Pen's shoulder, and Pen crumbled at the gesture of affection.

She missed home, she missed _home_ home a million miles away, she missed Sanctuary, she missed her new friends and her old ones, and most of all she missed not being able to trust people.

Clearly her reckless decisions weren't over, because all it took was one little smile and she was just fucking putty in ghoul hands today.

"I just told someone my life story and have absolutely no idea why," Pen blurted, the need to discuss what had happened a veritable weight on her chest.

Daisy cocked her head to the side, apparently unsurprised. "Was it the Mayor?"

Pen cringed in her own skin. "If I say yes, does it make me even more of a twat?"

Daisy snorted, tossing back her glass in one practiced swoop. "No, John's just good at getting information." Pen realised she must have looked nervous, because Daisy gave a hoarse hack of a laugh. "Not like that, I mean he's easy to talk to."

"Too easy," Pen muttered, unable to rid herself of Hancock's voice saying her name, of the way he looked at her – not as if she was unfortunate, not as if she was unlucky to have lived in a world damned as so many others did, but as if she was a surprise.

A good one.

Daisy ordered a fresh drink with a nod of her head, and passed a second to Pen. "Did talkin' it over help?"

"Actually? Yes," Pen admitted grudgingly, frustrated at her own reaction.

"So what's the problem?"

Pen paused, gooseflesh prickling at her skin as she remembered all over again, remembered the rumble, the rocks, the rays of light as she emerged above ground once more, and her voice held the same defeated quality that everything else had. "Sometimes I forget that the world ended."

As if on cue, the generator flickered and the lights dimmed, until all that remained was the soft glow of candlelight and the quiet clink of glasses, and Magnolia, who sang anyway, husky voice seeming intimate at the end of the world.

"It didn't end, sweetheart, it just got a bit darker," Daisy murmured, her steadiness soothing amidst a storm of radiation. "That's why you have to hold onto the bright sparks."

Pen remembered her old life, her old dog, her brother's eyes in a smaller face, and felt the breath whoosh out of her, "But I lost the last one I held."

Daisy's shoulder reacquainted with Pen's. "There'll be more."

Pen glanced over, small smile meeting Daisy's, and instead thought about her new life, her new dog, and jet-grey eyes that seemed to hold the very sparks themselves.

Pen finished her drink in one and savoured the burn, savoured life in all of its fucked up, irradiated glory.

"I hope you're right."

 

* * *

 

"She's on the balcony."

Hancock paused halfway through his office door, rubbing grit out of his eyes as he frowned at Fahrenheit. "What?"

"Your damsel, she's on the balcony."

Hancock swore under his breath, his gaze going to stupid things like his bed to see if it had been made – _no_ – and his desk to see if the dirty mags were still out – _yes_.

_Damn._

Had Pen come looking for him this morning? He'd only been gone for half an hour, and just because he had woken up to see Finn's body still outside and drawing flies.

Seriously, what did a mayor have to do to keep the streets clean around here? And he meant _physically_ clean, because fuck knows the dreck piled up and he tried his best to keep a healthy balance between _of the people_ and _for the people._

It was hard to be both when you were mayor, never quite one of them anymore, always a little separate, just enough to notice – even if he didn't sleep on the top floor and claim the biggest room.

Hancock tugged at the lapel of his duster, resettling the ruff of his shirt until it bared a little more of his chest. Not that there was anything to fucking show; he had been lean before the drugs, now he was wiry with it, skin stretched tight over bone and muscle.

Fuck, he must look such a sight to Pen's pre-war eyes.

"How long's she been there?"

Fahrenheit shrugged, stretching out further on the sofa that Pen had claimed yesterday, nimbly tossing a knife up and down. "Twenty minutes, said she wanted to wait for you."

Hancock tried not to take some form of satisfaction from that, still caught up in the surprise of her not having left in the middle of the night as she had before. "Where did she sleep?"

"Del said upstairs."

"Delisle was huffing on Jet last night," Hancock muttered, realigning his cuffs and picking at the hundred frayed edges to make them seem _somewhat_ less shitty. "I'm surprised she didn't say Pen was _floating._ "

Fahrenheit stared at him for a moment, her voice a knowing drawl when she finally spoke. "Wow, forgot how annoying you get when you like someone."

Hancock threw an inhaler at her and growled good-naturedly, "Take your chems an' fuck off."

Fahrenheit didn't make any attempt at moving until Delisle came tearing into the room, eyes wide and breathing hard. "Marowski's dead."

They both looked at each other, and then at the balcony door.

"Do you—?"

"Her? Yeah," Hancock answered, mouth tugging up at the edges. "Is it—?"

"About time? Yes."

Hancock echoed Fahrenheit's quiet laugh and wanted to go outside immediately, to check on Pen, to see if she'd tell him the truth, to see if she'd _smile,_ but he forced himself to gather his thoughts with a few waves of his hands. "Tell Clair it's under control, the hotel's hers now."

Fahrenheit nodded, but her admiring gaze was still on that door. "Your damsel's got teeth."

"I wanna see her use 'em," Hancock murmured under his breath, and went outside to see Pen leaning on the railing, face turned into the sunlight, hat and sunglasses dangling from her fingers so that her hair shifted in the wind.

The angel imagery was killing him here, especially when he'd put caps on those slim fingers pulling the trigger of a silenced 10mm not that long ago.

"Good morning, Mayor," Pen murmured without opening her eyes, which was good, because he was appreciating the gentle slope of her back, the slight dip before the generous curve of her— "I said _good morning,_ Mayor."

Oh, she was looking at him now, and she was calling him Mayor again.

One blonde eyebrow lifted at the slow drag of his gaze, so he gave her his most charming grin. "Good morning, Pen."

She snorted, smile showing as she looked away and made space for him to lean next to her. "At ease, rascal."

Hancock didn't quite beam at hearing that nickname again, but it was a close run thing as he folded his arms onto the railing. It was a comfortable quiet between them, the chatter of citizens below and the wind whistling through the buildings.

Pen savoured a deep breath of a sunlit breeze and he wondered if it smelled the same as before the war.

Maybe one day he'd ask her.

"So," she began, head tilting his way until her hair fell aside and revealed the vulnerable line of her neck. "You have a job for me?"

Hancock sighed, reluctant to send her away, to be tortured by sound and smell alike until she returned – if she returned at all.

It wasn't that he didn't trust her – she seemed a genuine sort and Hancock had learned to trust his gut – but there was nothing to bring her back except a potential reward, and she didn't seem to need it.

For the first time in a while, something had intrigued him, had teased his senses and summoned his wanderlust to the roaring forefront of thoughts which usually focused solely on chems.

Hancock wondered if she was as duty-bound to the Minutemen as he was to Goodneighbor.

"There's a dead-zone on our maps," he said finally, regret in each breath. "Traders won't go near it an' one of my people hasn't come back."

"When did you send them?"

"Two days ago," Hancock admitted, and knew from the way Pen frowned that he hadn't hidden his concern. "Pickman Gallery, just south of the river," he offered, and nibbled the inside of his scarred cheek before blurting, "Look, d'you have any backup to go with you? By all accounts the place's a death-trap—"

"Pickman, did you say?"

Hancock blinked in surprise at being interrupted, and realised he had lost her attention somewhere along the way. "Yeah, heard of it before?"

"Something like that," Pen murmured as she delved into a pocket, fingers fiddling in tight, dark leather before removing a slip of card. "I found this on one of my walks."

Hancock reached for it, asking as he did, "This one of your Minutemen walks?"

Pen hummed an agreement. "You think he knew I would be there?"

Hancock suppressed a shiver when he saw the bloody heart drawn on a crisp, white card. "Hello, Killer," he read disgustedly, and flipped it over and back again when that was all it said but for Pickman's name. "He's— he's _flirting_ with you!"

"Funny way to go about it," Pen scoffed, dangerously unconcerned.

Hancock tapped the card against the railing, eyes narrowing apprehensively. "Y'know this makes sense why I didn't hear back from my guy."

Pen shrugged, deftly picking the card out from between his fingers and sliding it back into her pocket. "I'll check him out, keep my eyes peeled for your lot."

The eeriness of the word _peeled_ firmed Hancock's idea, and throwing caution to the wind and himself to the deathclaws, he announced, "Fuck it, I'll come with you."

Pen gave him a little frown, but there was definitely a smile in her blue eyes. "Really?"

"You need someone to watch your back when you're gettin' messages like this," Hancock insisted, and realised almost too late that he had offended her, that he had inferred she wasn't capable. When he sensed a stubborn pout on her lips and saw her fingers trace her gun, he added, "An' you owe me for fucking up my chem deliveries."

Hancock expected a denial or amused agreement, he hadn't excepted her to huff indignantly. "Those labs were filthy; I dread to think what was in that stuff. Marowski was poisoning you."

He laughed as if Pen was joking, but it faded when she didn't join him. Was she serious? It was chems and he was a ghoul, who gave a shit what was in them?

Pen looked as if she was rethinking everything, so Hancock dragged a hand down his face and admitted, "Look, you saved me a job icin' Marowski, but it's killin' me in here, I need to get out for a bit."

It was no wonder Pen wore those sunglasses, her eyes were so very telling when sympathy flickered in their depths, but then she poked him in the chest with one slender finger. "Fine, but I _don't_ need someone to watch my back."

Hancock nodded, trying to hide his glee behind a sly grin. "Great, I'll just be eye candy."

He saw her bite her tongue, but her smile pulled irrepressibly at her mouth as she said archly, "Yes, you will."

"Won't even bring my shotgun," he agreed as she walked past him to go back inside, and for a moment her shoulder was against his chest and her face was inches from his, and Hancock held his breath.

He hadn't seen a blue that bright in five years.

Pen shoved him with one hand, her laugh taking the sting out of it. "Rascal."

Hancock almost bumped into her when she stopped inside the door, his chin perfectly in line with her hat – _with the top of her head_ , his subconscious provided – so that he had to sidestep to avoid touching her again.

Pen looked between him and Fahrenheit, and murmured, "Ah, I'm going to say goodbye to Daisy."

"I'll be down in a minute," Hancock offered, but she gave him a reassuring smile anyway, one that said _take your time, I'm not going anywhere._

Hancock knew he would chase her if she did.

He just had to deal with his second-in-command first, his second of the _orange hair, always there_ and the fuck off minigun she loved so much.

Fahrenheit only let him get away with a certain amount of shit, and then he half-expected her to grab him by the ear and drag him to his duty. In truth, she was better at this leader business, she had the ruthless edge he lacked – she just happened to scare the locals, too, and that wasn't good for a democracy.

She was also the only true friend he'd ever had.

"Fahr, it's Pickman, Newton's not back and—"

"It's fine, John," Fahrenheit interrupted matter-of-factly, surprising him with an entertained shake of her head. "Take a break, we'll be waiting for you."

Hancock offered her a relieved, lopsided grin. "Can't tell if I'm the predictable one or you've got the Sight."

"I just know you," Fahrenheit announced off-handedly, and clasped his forearm in a bruising grip. "Ready to break a nail for once?"

"Why not, I've been buffin' 'em for this long."

Fahrenheit cracked a small smile, but then a frown furrowed her brow as she tried to twist his arm. "Do you grow nails?"

Hancock pulled away and clocked her gently on the jaw, grinning when she growled at him. "Never ask a ghoul about his manicures, sister."

Hancock swept some things together as Fahrenheit watched; a pack of Mentats, a few inhalers of Jet, some Buffout in case Pen got him into trouble – which he was hoping for, even though he knew it would probably be _him_ that stepped into the shit and hoping there wasn't a frag mine underneath it.

His shotgun seemed to slot atop his shoulder as if it belonged there, and when he stepped outside it felt as if he could finally savour the same breeze that Pen had earlier.

It smelled like freedom.

"Watch _your_ six, not hers," Fahrenheit called tauntingly from the doorway of the Old State House, and Hancock threw his middle finger up above his head.

"Find a hat, you look shit for a mayor," he shouted back, grinning at Fahrenheit's laugh, and looked up to see Pen leaning against the perimeter wall, a new pack of .50 cal in each hand.

"I see you have pockets, excellent."

He feigned an unimpressed look even as he felt giddy enough to pick her up and spin her. "Times don't change, eh?"

Pen paused to raise an eyebrow at him, that same slender finger coming up to poke his chest, harder when he lost the battle and smiled like an idiot. "I have enough toys in my own to take you apart limb by limb."

"Is that a promise?"

Pen rolled her eyes and manhandled his coat open until she could slip the boxes in, muttering something about _wasted space_ and _why doesn't mine have this many pockets?_

He was going to offer his coat to her, just to see if she'd flush, but then decided it wasn't worth the risk in case she actually accepted and his irradiated heart finally gave out at the sight.

"After you," he offered, and he saw the smile in her eyes before she donned her ridiculous sunglasses again, missing his scowl when she walked ahead.

One little misstep, a slight crunch under his heel, that was all it would take for him to see those pretty, telling eyes whenever he wanted.

"C'mon, eye candy! I need something to look at!" Pen called, and Hancock grinned as he trotted to catch up with her, Goodneighbor at their heels and the Commonwealth ahead of them.

Liberty awaited, and it was the colour of eyes that looked like the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like to think of Hancock like Captain Jack Sparrow, that sort of 'in a daze' one moment and then swaying (fairly) steadily on his feet in the next. "Why are the chems always gone?" Or, perhaps better, when berated for being the ghoul mayor of a hive of scum and villainy, "Ah, but you _have_ heard of me."


	3. Celeste

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I accidentally reimagined how this encounter with Pickman went down, and it's partially due to the fact that _The Silence of the Lambs_ by Thomas Harris is one of my favourite books. I didn't see Pickman and the SS in that cellar, I saw Clarice and Hannibal - no fava beans though, I didn't pick up the cannibalism perk with Pen (ohoho).

> You say I took the name in vain  
>  I don't even know the name  
>  But if I did, well really, what's it to you?  
>  There's a blaze of light  
>  In every word  
>  It doesn't matter which you heard  
>  The holy or the broken Hallelujah
> 
> \- Leonard Cohen, _'Hallelujah'_

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. Every single day, crack of dawn. You could hear the bottles clinking from streets away."

Hancock shook his head in disbelief as he clambered up a collapsed wall, automatically turning to offer a hand up. "A _milk_ man?"

Pen's fingers slid into his for the tenth time today, and yet it still managed to make him inhale sharply at the feel of her soft skin against his coarse.

 _Milk._ What did they do before the war, bathe in the fucking stuff?

"Amble up to your house, pop a bottle on your doorstep, and away he'd go."

Hancock barely needed to brace he could pull her up so easily, and a part of him didn't like it.

He had only been a ghoul for five years, so his insides were still mostly intact; on the outside he was pretty fucked – _pretty_ being the operative word, there – but his muscles wouldn't start degrading for a long time yet, and that was all that mattered.

Well, it had been before he'd met Pen.

Hancock hadn't had to worry about what he looked like since his first screw after taking the drug. The Commonwealth was full of people who wanted to see what ghouls tasted like, but then Pen wasn't from around here.

It was just his luck that he took a fancy to the pre-war sniper with eyes like stars and skin like milk.

Even laden down with ammo and weapons, Pen was still light enough for Hancock to overshoot the first lift and pull her stumbling against him, her other hand balancing on his chest; two fingers against his bared skin as she tried to get her bearings.

For once, it hadn't caused any of those impure thoughts he had so often entertained as of late.

Pen needed to eat more.

Hancock frowned, half of his mind on the conversation as the other half wished he had filled his pockets with food instead of chems. "But why milk? There's so many better drinks out there."

Pen laughed, her fingers lingering in his for only a second before she nimbly hopped ahead of him, reminding him of some long-extinct little cat.

"It was an everyday thing, you needed it for cereal, coffee, tea," she trailed off to groan wistfully, surprising him with the depth of _want_ in it – it was a good sound, he wanted to hear it again, maybe his name too. " _Tea,_ fuck, I miss tea."

Hancock lengthened his stride to catch up, and then lessened it when his longer legs would have outstripped her.

It was funny, he hadn't thought of her as short, but as the day went on he was starting to see it; the way she jumped to look over high walls, or the way she shaded her eyes to look up at him.

Hancock guessed that she'd kill him if he told her it was cute.

"What's tea?"

Pen peered at him, and then she whined miserably. "I bet there's bunkers full of it back home, even if it is irradiated to shit," she sighed, rubbing her knuckles over her heart as if the thought pained her. "It's like leaves, but they're caffeinated and you put them in boiling water."

Hancock thought about that for a moment. "You like boring drinks."

Pen snorted, but her smile was a sad one. "They were comforting, and I need a bit of comfort right now," she murmured, and he didn't even have time to think about consoling her before she added with forced brightness, "I knew I should have hidden some in my vault suit."

Hancock had missed his chance, but he still managed to take a – caffeinated – leaf out of Pen's book and bump their shoulders together; her tactile nature with a relative stranger had surprised him before he realised how much he liked it, realised how much she might need it in this strange new world. "Doubt there was room for much else, I've seen 'em."

"Then I would have smuggled them in, in little pyramid-shaped baggies," Pen announced grandly, and snickered at what she called a _walking stereotype._

Hancock watched her with a smile. He was already used to her off-hand remarks – most of which weren't aimed at him – but she always perked up when he answered anyway, as if she had forgotten he was there and it delighted her to remember.

At least, that's what he hoped, because he'd been having trouble taking his eyes off of her for a second, let alone long enough to think he was alone.

As it happened, they weren't, anyway.

Pen froze first, hand reaching out distractedly until his thigh bumped into it, and when he stopped, she cocked her head to the side and listened.

 _Hunting cat,_ Hancock mused, trying not to let his leg twitch at the feel of her fingers.

It took a few more seconds for the sounds to reach him, his lack of an outer-ear putting him at a disadvantage until they got louder, and by then Pen had already pinpointed the noise and started stalking towards it.

Hancock followed suit – partly because Pen expected him to, but mostly because he was itching for a fight – and they squat-jogged their way to a low wall, a courtyard and scattered buildings lying beyond.

One of which was Pickman Gallery.

Hancock frowned as he crouched low to the ground, Pen settling in beside him. This was the dead-zone, but where were the screams this place was so famous for? It didn't matter what time of day it was, traders reported shrieks at all hours, and yet there was nothing but the wind and a few voices to welcome them.

Pen tugged at his sleeve just as he realised.

"Did some raiders beat us here?"

Hancock nodded, trying not to shiver at the feel of her breath against his neck, but it was impossible when the voices got closer and so did she, until he could see her wide eyes even behind the dark lenses.

Pen's fingers tightened around her pistol just as Hancock slid his shotgun to his lap, but they both hesitated at a familiar word over the wall.

"—some broad with one'a those Minutemen hats tore through Corvega like the clap."

"The fuck? S'that why Jared's gone quiet?"

"Yeah. Slab said we shouldn't be preyin' on their settlements, but Jared didn't listen."

"Can't've been one chick—"

"An' her dog."

"Fuckin' hell," was the muttered reply, and Hancock slowly looked up to see those wide eyes still staring at him.

Pen bit her lip and looked away.

_Holy fuck._

Hancock's breath came in a hiss, "That was _you?_ "

Apparently it wasn't the response Pen had wanted, because a thunderous scowl spread across her brow as she ripped off her sunglasses. "Two settlers on that farm, _two_ , and the raiders cleared them out."

Hancock blinked at the ruthless edge to those protective words, at the gunmetal gleam in those bright blue eyes, and wondered whether the Minutemen realised they had a warrior for a guardian angel. A warrior who had woken in a new world and taken up arms to defend it. "Did you kill all of 'em?"

"Evidently not," she sniped in annoyance, and then gave him a sheepish look when he continued to stare. "My dog is bloodthirsty."

"Your dog," he repeated dubiously, and she muttered something under her breath about a quick death being the easiest thing they could have gotten.

She said it again when they slipped inside the building, and Hancock had to agree.

Pen was a survivor, Hancock had seen it in the stiffness of her spine and the slyness of her smile, but he was starting to think that she was more of one than he was, because she didn't flinch at the bloody fracas within.

One of them had to be feral, and he was glad it wasn't him.

Pen lowered her gun slightly, turning on the spot as she looked about a room that might have been tidy once. There was a dining table in one corner, a sofa in the other, and strewn across them all were bodies.

"Raiders," Hancock confirmed, recognising the rusted armour and shoddy weapons beneath sprays of red and odd, jagged wounds; some still with the weapons sticking out of them, one of which was an axe attached to a contraption on the doorframe. "Why are they—?"

Hancock turned to see Pen with her guard down, gun at her side and attention solely on the eerie paintings, on the walls and crimson colours that glistened.

"He's making art out of them," Pen murmured, eyes roving over painted ones, and Hancock realised what she meant.

He half bent over, gorge rising in his throat as he focused on not retching, his voice sounding hoarser than usual when he could finally speak. "If you can call it art."

Pen huffed a soft laugh, and Hancock wasn't sure whether it was a good thing that she hadn't noticed him struggling, as if she was as trapped by the paintings as so many traders had been trapped by the painter. "There was worse called art in my time."

"Worse than _this?"_

"Worse was the wrong word," she admitted absent-mindedly. "Ripper didn't have Pickman's skill with a brush."

Hancock made a face somewhere between confused and horrified, but his hand shot out when her slim, pale finger almost touched the macabre form of paint; the scarlet globs seeming to reach out of the canvas in sick, silent encouragement.

"Don't," he murmured roughly, and finally won her attention with his fingers squeezing her cooler ones, shadows dancing over her blue eyes as he carefully pulled her away from the horror.

For that single moment it felt as if he pulled her utterly from her world to his, and they were left standing in a fucked up room on a fucked up planet with nothing but the other to rely on – and they were both a little fucked up too.

It was probably the wrong time to say _welcome to the 23rd century._

They were still holding hands when a scream echoed through the floor, and he wasn't sure which of them was more pleased when neither let go.

Pen held her pistol easily in her other hand, the right one tightening around Hancock's left as he hefted his shotgun to his waist. The house was empty but for the raider remains, and it was only in the cellar that they finally heard noises in the distance, voices and whimpers and—

Hancock whirled, Pen pinned safely behind him as he came face-to-face with an assault rifle.

"John?"

Hancock coughed a stream of curse words, thankful his irradiated eyes had given him better vision in dim light when he recognised the familiar mohawk but the unfamiliar blood streaks. "Newton, you look like shit."

Newton didn't move straight away, and Hancock realised that Pen had somehow managed to twist in his grip, her chest against his back and her pistol's sights lined up past his arm.

Hancock squeezed the hand still in his, and almost smiled when she immediately stepped down, giving Newton a wary once over before letting him go and guarding their backs.

"John," Newton sighed, relief making him sway on his feet. "I thought I was done for."

"I'm surprised you ain't," Hancock admitted frankly, side-stepping a bucket of something he was pretty damn certain wasn't normal paint. "What happened?"

"I sneaked in, an' he found me down here." Newton paled beneath the red splatter. "He's fuckin' weird, Boss, straight up asked me if I had somethin' for 'im, an' when I ain't, it was like I'd disappointed 'im."

Pen's interested hum hit Hancock like a homing beacon, but when he glanced at her she was just digging in her pockets

"So he attacked you?"

"No, that's what's weird, he muttered somethin' about the paintin' not _workin'_ 'cause I wasn't right _,_ an' I was jus' about to promise I wouldn't tell a soul when the raiders showed up," Newton explained, nerves making him slur his words. "It was like he'd forgotten me, he just grabbed one of 'is paintbrushes an' left."

"Then why're you still here?"

"I was gonna follow the cellar, but when I 'eard 'ow many raiders there were, I knew they'd 'ave the place surrounded. Figured one would finish the other, an' then I'd sneak out."

"Smart," Pen murmured, and they both turned to see her sat on a high window ledge, the daylight filtering through the dust until she glowed like some sort of celestial. "Is the cellar where they took Pickman?"

"Yeah," Newton answered, but only after Hancock had given him the nod. "There were more, but only five ended up in one piece."

"Sounds like they lost one on the way," Hancock pointed out morbidly, his shotgun feeling heavier than usual. "An' they call me a monster."

Pen hopped down at that, her shoulder nudging his before she wandered off again. The affection in such a simple touch seemed to sear through his duster, and Hancock couldn't help but stare after her.

"You gonna need me?" Newton asked, but it was clear from the way he shifted his weight that he wanted to get out of here as soon as possible – and Hancock didn't blame him, Pen was getting way too close to one of those paintings again, this one only half finished.

If Pickman was still alive, he didn't want to end up as the madman's muse.

"No, Newt, it's fine," Hancock assured, clapping him on the shoulder before adding in an undertone, "Tell Fahr I might be late."

To Newton's credit, he only glanced at Pen for a second. "Yeah, sure thing, Boss."

Newton scurried out, his footsteps drowning out anything else until Hancock wished he could continue to hear them. It was just them and the cellar's noises all too soon, faint drips and squeaks as if the walls had absorbed all the ghastly shit that had happened here.

They could just go, leave Pickman to his fate and the raiders to their vendetta.

Pen held out her hand, blue eyes beseeching him in the candlelight until they looked like stars in a night sky. "C'mon, rascal."

Hancock grabbed for her fingers, took a deep breath, and together they made their way into the belly of the beast.

They passed the screamer, silenced now by the pool of blood that spread beneath a once-gleaming yao guai trap, and they left a trail of red footprints behind them as they neared the sounds of one harsh voice and a soft one.

"You aren't even sorry, you sick fuck."

"Are you?"

It was a calm, collected question asked of raiders famed for their love of mutilation, and Hancock had to raise an acknowledging brow.

The man had a point.

Or, at least, the crazy, psychotic serial killer had a point.

Pen peered into the pit and scowled at the sight of a suited man who stood, unarmed, surrounded by the four remaining raiders, a dribble of blood over his lip and his oiled hair askew.

It was odd how dignified Pickman looked compared to the others, until a thick slab of a hand seized his sharp jaw. "We'll see if you scream too, eh?"

Apparently that was Pen's biting point, because Hancock found himself dragged forwards, Pen's hand leaving his to whip her pistol up and shoot.

The sound rang painfully around the stone room, Hancock wincing almost as much as the leader did when the man clutched at his neck, claret streaming out between his fingers.

Hancock might have waited for the tinnitus to fade but the sight of a barrel aimed Pen's way had him reacting with a roar, the shotgun blast forcing the raider off of his feet and Hancock's blood to pump that much quicker, adrenaline burning through his veins and feeling fucking _glorious_.

Instincts took over as he and Pen ducked behind pillars, the raiders yelling at each other as everything descended into chaos and Hancock had to work on just keeping an eye on that damn Minuteman hat. Pen attacked like a cat, quick little darts out of cover, sharp swipes and bared teeth, her shots careful, deadly things.

Hancock could see the survivor now, and she _shone._

In the furore, Pickman stood carefully out of the way, and it was only when someone got too close to Pen that he decided to join in and strike; far too many times, with a blade that appeared out of nowhere and tore through flesh as if it was water. A really fucking red sort of water.

Still, at the end, with the raider leader gurgling for breath at his suited-and-booted feet, those odd, empty eyes were fixated on Pen; Pickman's curious gaze not slipping to Hancock once – which he found pretty damn rude – and that was before she drew out that creepy card from her pocket.

"You rang?"

Pickman's face lit into one of boyish delight. "You came! Do you like it?"

Oh, shit. _Pen_ was the muse.

Pen took a deep breath, her nod half-hearted. "It's certainly creative."

"They tell their own stories, you know," Pickman explained conspiratorially, and Pen's interested noise didn't sound very forced. "Shall I show you?"

Hancock stiffened, finger squeezing slightly tighter on his trigger, but Pen spoke up before he could lift his barrel. "No, no; thank you, but no," she hastened, but she still gave Pickman a curious look. "How did they get to you?"

"There were too many of them," Pickman replied, nose wrinkling in distaste. "They outnumbered my traps."

"Traps?"

"I lure them in," Pickman said simply, as if he were discussing grocery lists, "and then they paint for me."

Hancock remembered the yao guai trap, the axe fixed to the doorframe for any unsuspecting idiot who walked through, and shuddered.

Pen's head tilted, and Hancock couldn't help but growl at the way Pickman's rapt, covetous gaze traced the pale line of her neck. "Who paints for you?"

"The raiders."

Pen flashed Hancock a significant glance, as if he was supposed to take some sort of meaning from it. "Only raiders?"

"The screams keep everyone else away. The occasional super mutant wanders in, but their stories are dull," Pickman sighed in disappointment, and Pen nodded slowly before clapping her hands together.

"Well, that's us done then."

Hancock opened his mouth to vehemently object, but Pen stepped back enough that he could relax a little – and he wondered whether she had done it on purpose, whether she knew him that well already.

Everyone had the fucking Sight these days.

Pickman's head inclined very slightly, boyish smile turning scarily charming as he murmured, "Thanks… Killer."

' _Okay, what the fuck,'_ was Hancock's mantra for the walk out, a walk where Pen had his arm in a vice for the duration and only let him go when they stood in the bizarre warmth of sunlight after the chill, the world seeming too bright all of a sudden, too full of fire.

"Okay, what the fuck."

Pen holstered her pistol, hands landing on her hips as she turned to him, clearly expecting a fight. "He kills raiders; what difference does that make from us?"

Hancock rested his shotgun over his shoulder, brows high. "Uh, we don't paint usin' their blood?"

"No, we leave them in bits about the Commonwealth," she replied dryly, and when he opened his mouth again, added matter-of-factly, "The raiders would have killed Newton, Pickman didn't."

"Because he was interrupted!"

Pen shook her head. "Because he wasn't a raider."

"Because his story was _dull,_ " Hancock corrected, but he was being contrary for the sake of it now – and because he liked her stubborn little pose, liked the way her lower lip stuck out and her posture threw the sunlight in all the right places. "Y'know if he starts murderin' proper people, you're first on his list."

"Good, then I can stop him if it comes to it," Pen replied casually, a smile spreading across her face like a plume of heady Jet smoke. "Am I a proper person?"

Hancock wanted to shake her, having to worry because she wouldn't, and it fuelled the mildly aggravated palm that scraped down his face. "He was _flirtin'_ with you."

"So you said."

"It doesn't bother you?"

Pen shrugged, turning on her heel and hopping over a downed raider – Newton's work if the copious bullet holes were any indication. "I've had odder people flirting with me."

Hancock blinked in surprise and, despite everything, despite this weird, new urge that had him wanting to defend her, the corners of his mouth twitched. "Is that supposed to be funny? 'Cause it ain't."

"Then why are you smiling?" Pen asked without turning around, and gave him a happy grin when he walked up beside her.

She was playing with him, and he liked it.

 _Busy in politics, quiet in gunfire._ Pen managed to be quietly busy in both.

"I'm smilin' 'cause I didn't think you'd be…" Hancock trailed off, trying to find the right word for a woman who waged war against some and peace against others.

_Bloodthirsty, tempestuous, feral._

"Fair."

Pen gave him a smirk, dangerous for how sweet it looked. "Was it the baby blues?"

Hancock chuckled, wondering if she would take his hand again if he offered, wondering if she thought his skin harsh and horrible. "Yeah, I guess."

"You shouldn't judge a book by its cover," Pen murmured, and Hancock returned her wry smile.

"Good point."

 

* * *

 

Pen had thought she would sleep as soon as they set up camp for the night, their chosen spot under the stars after Hancock had boosted her onto a fire escape – where he immediately tried to show off by climbing up unassisted and she had tried not to enjoy the view.

It was an odd thing to realise she was doing, admiring him, but he moved like a bear with the body of a lion; rangy and ribbed, yet steady and striking with it.

She knew first-hand that he could roar, the sound sending shivers up her spine when she remembered what it was that guarded her back, but forgot again when he laughed and swung up beside her. That was her problem, forgetting and remembering, whether it was the world ending or the reason Hancock's eyes were that odd but fascinating shade of grey.

It was the duster that had drawn her attention, that was all, the out of place duster and the ridiculous shirt that bared his chest when he moved – because honestly, what year was it and he was still rocking frills?

Especially when those frills framed surprisingly toned muscles under all that scarred skin.

Rascal.

Pen trusted him, probably more than she should this early on, but it was still odd to sleep with someone else sharing her fire – even if sleep had been anything but difficult lately, and even if Hancock's presence was an unusual but comforting one.

Instead, Pen rolled onto her back and marvelled once again at how clear the skies were now.

There was a different kind of pollution at play two centuries down the line.

Quiet but for the fire and her thoughts, the latter quickly strayed to the figure who sat with his arms resting on his bent knees, and she wished she had kept her sunglasses on so she could look her fill without seeing the corner of his mouth turn up with a murmured, "Somethin' catch your eye?"

Rascal didn't even begin to cover it.

"Can't sleep?"

Hancock's voice hit her like the sea hit the rocks, fast and frigid; but just as it happened when water frothed against skin, it left a bizarre sort of warmth behind.

Hypothermia, the temperature tantrum of Stockholm Syndrome – and Pen wasn't going to think about _why_ she was enjoying the cold, the chill, the creep of husky-sounding waves, except that it made perfect sense to shiver as she tilted her back against the floor to look at the source.

Upside-down, Hancock's amused smile was still rather handsome.

Pen scrabbled upright, surprise chasing sleep entirely away as she tried not to meet the eyes glued to her profile. That was not an avenue she was going down, not now, not on top of a building, not when she was still having trouble reconciling _man_ and _ghoul._

Not when she was like a duck _out of_ the fucking water analogy with all this bollocks, guns and ghouls and grief – not the typical grief, but the sort of grief you get from being propelled two centuries into the future and not being able to get a decent perfume anymore.

She probably smelled like shit and everyone knew it, obvious lack of nose or not.

"No," she murmured when her heart rate had returned to more manageable levels and she had one-hundred-percent decided she still wasn't old enough for this malarkey, despite the two centuries of sleep. "Bad dreams."

Hancock grunted a reply, but she could still feel him watching her in the silence that followed. "Did you dream in the ice?"

Jet-grey caught burdened blue, and held.

"Sorry—"

"It's fine," Pen interrupted quietly, wary of waves when they turned to ice, and she subconsciously mimicked Hancock's posture, holding her hands up to the fire to feel the burn, the _heat._ "No, I didn't. It felt like I had just closed my eyes."

Hancock frowned, one leg bending under the other as he leaned closer. "Can't tell if that's worse or not."

"It's worse. My body kept telling me that no time had passed," she sighed, remembering skeletons and dusty terminals and the overpowering smell of _damp._

"That's gotta be a mindfuck."

Pen had to laugh at his blunt description, and his self-effacing one echoed it.

"I used to wonder what life would be like, after an apocalypse," Pen admitted, her voice threading through the still night air like spider's silk, fragile and glittering.

"When most people play make-believe, it's nice shit."

"I had my nice shit too," she chided with a little nudge of her shoe against his, one that made him smile – it faded all too quickly when she quietened. "It was harder, in a way. The nice shit was something to aspire to, something that could happen if I just worked hard enough."

Hancock watched her and wondered what dreams she had, what she had wanted from a world before the bombs fell, what she wanted now. "You work pretty damn hard these days."

"This is survival. Back then it was fun, I'd entertain myself by thinking what guns I'd want, what clothes I'd wear, what sort of a person I'd be." Pen leaned back to look at the star-studded sky through the fallen roof, her voice like a whisper on a wayward wind. "I never thought it would happen."

"You ever think who you'd travel with?"

"I always thought I'd be alone," she murmured, her shrug uncomfortable. "That's how the stories always told it, _the lone wanderer_."

Hancock lifted himself up at her dramatic tone and settled closer, just near enough to lean against if she wanted to. "You're one up on your imagination then, 'cause you got a handsome ghoul by your side."

Pen couldn't quite put into words how much she appreciated the gesture, so she rested her shoulder ever so lightly against his and teased, "A handsome ghoul who thinks very highly of himself."

Hancock's quiet laugh seemed to reverberate through her, the soft roar of a distant motorcycle engine and the fumes to go with it – whiskey instead of petrol, but just as enjoyable.

"What nice shit did you dream of?"

Pen stiffened, drawing away and towards the fire at the friendly question. "I wanted this," she said hollowly, voice ringing with guilt.

Hancock looked down at her, frowning at question and movement both. "What d'you mean?"

"Back then, before the war, I always thought life was so complicated, I longed for a simpler time. I wanted to go _back_ in time." Pen looked around, her next breath a shaky one as a different sort of light gleamed in her eyes. "I suppose I did, in a way."

The arm around her shoulders was a shock, but it gave her time to recoil, to reject it, and when she didn't, it drew her gently back against threadbare red duster and simply held her, and she realised that it wasn't icy waves at all, it was warmth. Hancock was warm, even in the cold night air and so at odds to the chilled memories that haunted her head.

She couldn't help but burrow into his side and find it easier to _breathe._

Pen had refused tears after the vault, refused to cry into her pillow or scream into the darkness, because she had _asked_ for this, asked for the world to end and shit to hit the fan.

She deserved it.

It took a ghoul to tell her that she didn't, and it took a ghoul to soak up the single tear that streaked down her cheek.

It took Hancock to tell her that it was okay.

"Shit," he added, "but okay."

Pen gave a wet laugh at his matter-of-fact rasp, and felt him smile when he rested his chin on her hair.

It took the world ending for Pen to meet him, a ghoul who had appeared like death in a duster when she first stepped into Goodneighbor, and she pondered that as the fire burned down and Hancock threw a broken chair onto it without letting her go.

What sort of a man— _ghoul_ -chose one of America's founding fathers' names to put a shape to his desire, to rather literally hold a flag aloft that said loud and proud, _land of the free?_

Had he found a history poster and chosen a likely name, or had there been a time where the same ghoul that now sat in the campfire's glow, had read an old, faded book by the light of a flickering candle and admired a man they termed patriot?

The same patriot who had made things very fucking difficult for Great Britain.

Pen wondered if she should take anything from that.

She made a mental note to keep a close eye on any tea she might find.

If she'd had any doubts about Hancock at the start of the day, they had evaporated by the end. He had proved he was good with a shotgun – and he knew it judging by the cocky grin he always slid her when the dust settled after a bout with a raider group.

Most of all, he had proved loyal, and not just to her, but to Goodneighbor, _to the people._

Pickman was by no means an outcast ghoul or a reformed assaultron; the irony was that he was human, but even the Commonwealth's boogeyman might have gunned him down for what he had done.

Maybe they should have done, but it hadn't felt right, and Hancock had followed her lead.

Her _thank you_ was almost lost in the fabric of his duster, but jet-grey eyes looked down at her and flames jumped in their depths like gold dust caught in onyx, like the last sparks in a dying world. Pen thought she'd have to explain the sudden gratitude, but Hancock's reply had been immediate, low and husky. _Thanks for tellin' me why._

It felt nice to trust again.

Terrifying, but nice.

Pen had snagged an hour's sleep against Hancock's chest, blinking awake to feel his fingers lightly playing with the ends of her hair, and it had felt too soothing to question why.

She dropped off again before he finished, and woke up the second time to his apologetic, "My arm's fallin' asleep."

He had laughed at her sleepy frown, laughed again when she was caught in the almost golden glow in his dark eyes, and he had seemed surprised when she simply wriggled down to rest her head against his thigh instead.

"I'm a pillow now, eh?"

He had feigned reluctance at her happy affirmative, but only a couple of minutes passed before she felt his hand smooth a few strands of hair from her face. His fingers weren't meant to touch her cheek if his quiet cursing was any indication.

Pen didn't care, for once she didn't have to keep one hand on her gun or one eye on the door, and so she woke with a little more pep than usual when dawn finally broke over the horizon – especially when she opened her eyes to see Hancock's head tilted forwards, hat almost off of his head and arm resting against hers so she wouldn't accidentally roll off.

He woke as soon as she moved, and she pretended not to notice how quickly he busied himself with the fire, just as he pretended not to notice the little dribble she had left on his duster.

Trust.

"So," Hancock piped up after they had started making tracks, "what's your ride? I'm a Mentats ghoul myself, makes me feel intellectual."

Pen's smile jumped to her lips even though she could have charted Hancock's chem habits already. He popped Mentats like Tic Tacs, Buffout when he felt trapped, and Jet was for when he was bored – and the latter hadn't happened yet.

Pen cleared her throat, rifling through a fallen raider's pockets to find a familiar packet that rattled when she tossed it Hancock's way. "I'll stick to the Nuka Cola."

Hancock paused halfway through pocketing the latest addition to his stash. "Is that a joke?"

"I like a drink," she said defensively. "I did treat myself to a bottle of 200-year-old Gwinnett Ale that first day I woke up, but I wasn't a fan."

Pen peeked at him over her sunglasses, surprisingly nervous as to his reaction. It had been the same before the war, everyone else was always keen to try the latest miracle drug, whereas Pen had been reluctant to pop a painkiller for a headache.

It wasn't as if rosé wine aged well. _Crisp with a toasty, irradiated twist._

Hancock veered away from her, and the sight of it sent a little lurch through her stomach, one that bucked when he fiddled with a door handle before deciding to just kick it down and disappear inside a dilapidated house.

What had she been saying about trust?

There was a faint clinking sound from inside, and when Hancock reappeared, it was with a dark bottle in his hand and his brow raised high. "Y'know this stuff gives you radiation poisoning?"

Pen scoffed a relieved breath, shoving him gently on the shoulder when he slid the Nuka Cola into the small backpack she had found in lieu of more pockets. "Funny, but it's not the sort of buzz I'm looking for."

For some reason it surprised a grin onto his face as they continued to walk down the street. "But you _are_ lookin' for a buzz?"

Pen's frown didn't quite cover her confused smile at what definitely sounded like innuendo. "Alongside staying alive and helping the Minutemen?"

Hancock shrugged but he was watching her carefully. "Never not time for a quick buzz."

Pen tried to laugh it off, tried to ignore the flush of her cheeks that she hoped her sunglasses was hiding. "I don't do quick."

She should have guessed he was persistent, he was the ghoul mayor of an entire town, after all.

"A long, sustained buzz then?"

It was her turn to grin, but it was a little bit embarrassed and he knew it. "The world's gone to shit but I still remember what life was like."

He had to be teasing her, only Hancock would tease her at the end of the world when everyone she knew was dead and she hadn't had a cup of tea in over 210 years.

"Yeah? Did you have a long an' sustained buzz back then?"

He was definitely teasing; she could tell by the emphasis he ladled thick on those two words.

"Not by the end, except the one in my drawer."

That stunned him enough into skipping a step, which only made her wonder why she'd said anything at all. "Woah! You serious?"

Pen simply growled, and Hancock was quiet for so long that she started to wish he would say _anything._

"Huh, so I guess you miss batteries?"

At his musing tone, she flashed him a wary look and admitted, "You have no idea."

He nodded as if in sombre thought, but his slow-growing smirk was wicked. "Guess you'll need somethin' more portable then?"

"I'll settle for something that can shoot, for now, thanks," she managed dryly around an off-the-Geiger-counter flush.

Hancock flipped his shotgun over his shoulder and tugged at his lapel. "I'm a ghoul of many talents."

There was a shot from somewhere ahead of them, and within a sharply inhaled breath he had her against the wall, palm beside her head. If it hadn't been for the glare he aimed over his shoulder, she might have stabbed him for it.

He was putting himself between her and danger.

Pen looked up the short distance between them, and blinked onto jet-grey eyes that widened when she murmured, "Aren't you just?"

She hadn't known that ghouls could still blush.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've secretly just got a great Britpicker, [honest.](http://comehitherashes.tumblr.com)


	4. Resolution

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't tag this "slow burn" because it's more "realistic relationship," so don't shoot the courier, shoot the gentleman ghoul (if he isn't shot enough already). To those of you who messaged me here and on [Tumblr](http://comehitherashes.tumblr.com), you're wonderful, please continue to do so! <3 A big thank you to victorygin for beta-ing.

> I did my best, it wasn't much  
>  I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch  
>  I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you  
>  And even though it all went wrong  
>  I'll stand before the Lord of Song  
>  With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah
> 
> \- Leonard Cohen, _'Hallelujah'_

"No, Pen, I don't mind taking a _quick detour_ to some settlement in the ass end of nowhere," Hancock muttered under his breath as he idly lifted a hot plate up. "No, Pen, Fahrenheit's not going to kick my own – still very nicely formed, thanks – ass for disappearing for a week."

Pen's head lifted from the suitcase she was rummaging in, blonde hair tumbling from under her hat until it looked like a fucking halo. "What was that?"

Hancock accidentally slammed the hot plate down. "Huh, what? Oh, uh, I was just talkin' to myself."

Pen tutted loudly, oblivious to his relieved expression. "First sign of madness, you know."

"Yeah, well," he sighed, resting his back against the counter so he could look at her, "the last sign is hoardin' shit that nobody needs."

Pen hummed in faux interest, already digging for supplies again. "Yes, I remember how I added that grip to your shotgun with only spit and elbow grease."

Hancock stroked said weapon fondly, still amazed that she could cobble anything together from the mess of her rucksack, let alone something so perfectly tailored to him it felt like a gift. "Adhesive is one thing, five million coffee mugs is somethin' else."

"It's five _singular_ cups, and I need the ceramic for the radio towers."

"Only you, kitten."

The nickname slipped out by accident, but he had been silently calling her it since she had curled up on his leg the other night. She was quick and petite, unassuming one second and teeth bared the next.

Kittens didn't tend to be fucking grumpy in the morning, of course, but everyone had their faults.

Her hat popped up again, tilted to the side endearingly. "Hm?"

Hancock knew his smile was fond as he shook his head. "Nothin'."

Truth was, he really _didn't_ mind following her about the Commonwealth, and he thought that he probably should. A normal person probably would.

Then again, he hadn't been normal for a few years, and he hadn't given a shit about that until Pen.

They had slept rough again for the last two nights, but warm, thanks to the enquiring glance he had sent over the fire that had summoned her padding happily over to him, curling up against his side like the kitten he had named her.

For someone who wielded a 10mm with as much deadly precision as she did, she was a remarkably cuddly little fucker. The fall of her blonde hair down his duster was something he was never going to tire of, mind.

If their nights had been calm, the days had been hectic. Pickman definitely hadn't been the trouble that he had known was coming. Instead Hancock found it, again and again, in raider camps and mutant holdouts, until Pen peered at his smoking shotgun and savage grin.

_You're enjoying this, aren't you?_

_You 'ave no idea, darlin'._

Pen had laughed with him, high and delighted and so at odds to the carnage around them. It reminded him of her quiet admission on the rooftop, that a part of her had always wanted this, craved the burn and the hysterical laughter that followed a blistering shoot-out and half-a-dozen close calls.

Living wasn't living until you fought for it.

Their firefights were full of checks; checks behind them, checks over walls, checks on each other; brief touches during and harried hugs after, each assuring themselves that the other was okay.

It wasn't hard to see that they were cut from the same cloth – if one piece was over 200-years-old but perfectly preserved, and his was only 30 and already ruined. She was his opposite in so many ways, smooth where he was rough, pale where he was burned, sensible where he was reckless.

But she was feral, and she was fair.

And he loved that about her.

Hancock choked on his Mentat, shock spiralling through his system at that stomach-squirming statement.

 _Love?_ What was he, twelve again, crushing on the girls in _Guns and Bullets_?

He loved chems, he loved the burn, he loved the way his shotgun bucked into his shoulder, sometimes he loved himself, but he didn't love _other_ people.

Well, he loved Fahrenheit in a way, and the rest of their ragtag crew, but that was a battle-hardened kind of affection, the trust you formed when someone had your back, when you struggled just the same and you could name a few of their scars.

He must just be down a huff of Jet, that was all, he'd mistaken lust for— for the other thing.

As soon as he thought he had a grip on himself, a warm hand landed on his shoulder and some purified water appeared in front of his face.

"S'fine," he coughed, fist slamming into his chest as he tried to dislodge the clever bugger. "Keep it for yourself."

Pen, much like the Mentat, just stayed there, sweet and infuriating.

But her delicate hand slipped to his chest, stopping him from hitting himself, and when she stood in front of him, he swallowed nervously.

That dislodged it.

"Better?"

Hancock managed to make some sort of dumbfounded affirmative, his usual witty repartee escaping him when it felt as if he would fall into those relieved blue eyes, the shimmer reminiscent of an oasis after hours of wandering the Wealths.

He loved that shimmer.

_Fuck._

"You've forgotten something," Pen teased, her fingers slipping from his chest without stepping away, and for an insane second he thought that she might kiss him. "Hot plates have copper."

Hancock released a ragged breath when she leaned around him to snag her latest prize – his were chems, hers was copper.

Clearly his prizes were making him delusional – more than what was described on the tin.

Hancock waited for her to zip up her rucksack before lifting it from her shoulders, and when Pen glared at him, he simply shrugged. "You've got the rifle."

"I can carry both."

"Didn't say you couldn't, kit—" Hancock managed to stop himself before it sounded like anything. Pen was too busy pouting at him anyway – which, honestly, just meant he'd carry the moon if she asked.

As if trying to deliberately annoy him, she flipped those ridiculous sunglasses on as soon as they stepped outside, the wide white rims almost covering her cheekbones.

"Why d'you wear those things?"

Pen raised an eyebrow at his growl, not noticing the little skip in her own step now that she wasn't carrying her bag.

He loved that skip.

"It's too sunny here, I'm still used to overcast skies," she explained, unaware that Hancock was now choking on his own tongue as there were no Mentats to hand. "I have a bit of light sensitivity."

"Oh, me too, actually," he admitted, feeling a little guilty for wishing destruction on the innocent things when they saved her from discomfort.

"Really?"

"Yeah, when—" Hancock waved a hand over his face "—this happened, it was like the world dimmed a little."

"Oh," Pen echoed him, but hers was soft, sympathetic, and he couldn't very well tell her that the only thing that reminded him of the bright skies he had known were her eyes, as if they shone right through his fucked up corneas.

"S'not a big deal," he offered instead. "I can see great in the dark now."

"But you don't…" Pen trailed off with a little flush, so he nudged her with his shoulder as encouragement. "You don't have an iris, so you can't have a _tapetum lucidum._ "

Hancock blinked his apparently faulty eyes. "What's that?"

"It's what gives animals superior night vision. Have you ever seen a pair of glowing rings in the dark?"

"Yeah, normally when one's throwin' itself at me," he said dryly, and she shot him a wry smile. "Maybe s'why you've not seen mine."

He expected her to laugh, she normally did when he was being cheeky, but instead she was staring at him – not just at him, but through him, as if remembering something.

"Gold," she murmured distractedly, and he had to stop walking when she neared, still not quite seeing him.

Hancock's heart was in his throat, scarred and irradiated and _panicky,_ panicky because Pen was so very close to him now, her lips parted slightly as she frowned, and Hancock's hand was halfway to her cheek when her hat flew off her head.

The sound of the gunshot seemed to come too late, but the second one had Pen crying out in agony, and that should never have come at all.

Pen faltered before he grabbed her, stooping to get a grip around her legs, and when he felt something slick about her thigh he could have cursed himself. Pen did it for him, high and abrasive and really fucking colourful.

Those pretty lips seemed prettier with the filth spilling out from between them.

Hancock's shoulder rammed the closest front door, the lock giving away before the hinges did so he could kick it back into place and rush up the stairs, wincing at every one of Pen's pained gasps.

He didn't trust the rickety furniture, so he tipped a table over with a hip and placed her down behind it, racing back to shove a filing cabinet into the doorway and hoping they had enough time.

Pen had already twisted to look at the back of her leg, at the growing stain of red on her leathers that made Hancock feel faintly sick.

It was worse when she touched it and her fingers came back the same crimson as Pickman's paintings.

"At least if they shot well, I'd be dead," she hissed angrily, continuing to prod what he severely hoped was just a bullet graze beneath the curve of ass cheek he had been admiring all day.

"That ain't better, kitten."

"It's better than feeling like this," she grit through her teeth, apparently in too much pain to notice his slip.

Hancock's hand landed on her thigh, and he felt the muscle twitch as he rolled her onto her side slightly so he could see the wound.

"It's just a graze, thank fuck." His relieved sigh wracked through him as he kept one hand on her leg and the other in one of his pockets. "You should have some of this if you don't wan' it to hurt."

Pen glared at the needle as if it offended her, the Med-X itself apparently a secondary evil. "Since when have you carried medicinal chems?"

"Since I started wanderin' with you," Hancock replied, and chose not to tell her about the frankly brilliant buzz it gave, sporting an injury or not. "Take it."

"I don't wanna," she whined petulantly, but all it did was make him grin and wiggle the point. "I'm not a dog, I don't need my shots!"

"Nah, you got enough of those already," he joked, and laughed outright when she swatted him. "What do shots have to do with dogs?"

"Pre-war," she muttered, eyes squeezing shut. "Stopped infections."

He hummed an acknowledgement and blinked when she glared at him. "What?"

"I thought you'd do it when I wasn't paying attention so it wouldn't hurt!"

He gave a short huff of a laugh, "You didn't say I could."

For some reason, her fidgeting stopped, her attention focusing solely on him as something odd flitted through those telling eyes, and then she nodded tightly. "Fine, go on."

"It's just a little prick," he murmured, winning the pained laugh he wanted from her, and he was glad she looked away when he gave a giddy smile at her trust, adrenaline and something that felt vaguely high-like flickering through his own veins.

He would be able to name this scar.

Pen whined quietly when he lifted her sleeve, and Hancock shook his head at the smooth stretch of her arm, pale and priceless. He was never this gentle with himself – or with anyone else for that matter – but then it was just a case of making a new hole amidst hundreds.

This was like…

Well, it was like poking holes in perfectly preserved pre-war art.

Fuck, he was going to have to start sterilising his needles more carefully.

Hancock pocketed the syringe and its cap, and watched her take forcibly steady breaths to the count of ten, and then the eleventh one came with a sigh.

"Oh, fuck," she whispered dazedly, "it's like morphine."

"What?"

Pen forced her eyes open, her pupils so wide they nearly eclipsed the blue, and then she gave him a smile that showed her teeth. "Where were we?"

 _Just fuckin' kiss her,_ streaked through Hancock's thoughts like stray bullets, but then Pen jumped up, those crimson fingers touching his jaw briefly before she squeezed past the drawers at the door and disappeared.

Hancock felt as dazed as she had sounded.

Oh, right, she wasn't used to the chems.

Fuck, she was going to think she could fly.

Hancock scrambled out after her, only to see her by a window on the landing, holstering her pistol and finally drawing her sniper rifle off of her back in one graceful movement. The gun's stock aligned perfectly with her cheek, and for a single, careful breath, every quivering muscle stilled, and she fired.

There was a pained cry in the distance.

_No, seriously, kiss her._

At a crash of wood downstairs, Hancock leaned over the bannister to fire his shotgun at the rusted metal helmet in the doorway. As if Pen felt him looking at her without taking her eyes from her rifle's scope, she murmured, "Go on, I'll meet you out there."

Hancock couldn't quite hide the groan that tore from his throat, unsure now if he wanted to kiss her because she was efficient, because she was equipped, or because she was just so fucking elegant.

Screw the way she trailed her fingers over her 10mm when she was pissed, this was fine-tuned fury, back arched and arms steady and looking exactly like a damn pull-out in _Guns and Bullets_.

"Go on, rascal," she warned, and he finally left with a grin – although his heart made a feeble attempt at stopping when he heard her fire another shot.

Hancock vaulted over the vaguely human-shaped pile at the door, and just about managed to avoid a baseball bat to the face when he didn't immediately race out.

Two shells took care of the wielder in a gory spray of bone and wood chippings. When all was quiet, he took a wary step outside and set about scouring the debris for a glimpse of faded brown.

He flinched when he heard the rifle go again, and turned just in time to see a figure slump to his knees at the other end of the street.

Pen waved at him from the window.

That was why he wanted to kiss her, those three reasons and more, because she had woken up in an unfriendly world and made it her own, because he had done the same with Goodneighbor.

Because she hobbled out of that busted door and he knew he would do anything to stop her from hurting.

 _Fuckity fuck,_ it was so much worse than lust and he was in so much shit.

"Why won't my fingers stop tapping?"

"It's the Med-X, there's some adrenaline mixed in, normally you'd take a huff of Jet to offset it."

Hancock watched her examine her bloody fingertips in amusement, unsure what to do with the calamity in his head. "I can't find your hat."

Pen's face dropped so suddenly that it would have been comical if it hadn't been so heart-wrenching. "Seriously?"

Hancock inhaled an irritated breath, but he exhaled it gently when Pen came to lean against him, her weight a negligible, precious thing.

_Fuck, John, what are you doing?_

"I'll find you another one," he found himself promising, promising something he couldn't guarantee, just as he couldn't guarantee anything. Couldn't even guarantee himself, because he was a fucked up ghoul with a chem addiction and a people complex so fucking complex that he wasn't even sure if he _was_ people anymore.

Nothing made sense, but then nothing ever had, and normally he just shot up with a gun or a pill until it did. His thoughts were jumbled, scrambling things, confused things, and all he wanted to think about was Pen's arm hooking with his as if he were a gentleman.

In another life, perhaps, but he was nothing so grand now.

Which didn't explain why, when he saw a crude pipe pistol lined up to shoot them, he pushed Pen aside and took a bullet in the leg, and another in his side.

Pen held his weight for a single yelp of surprise, and then they fell, Pen's knees buckling awkwardly and Hancock blindly ensuring that he covered her body with his, pain spreading like a roiling cloud before a rad storm.

"You stupid git," she muttered in his ear when a third bullet pounded into his back and he fell hard on top of her.

"Thanks," he grit out, and focused on not crushing her, but when a fourth scattered heat in his shoulder and lights danced in his dimmed eyes, he wondered whether he had bitten off more than he could chew, than he could huff, than he could live with.

What a way for a ghoul to go, saving a smooth-skin he might very well love; they'd write him in the history books for this.

If he hadn't used someone else's fucking name.

Pen squirmed beneath him until one slender hand sneaked out from under his hip, 10mm clicking twice before she relaxed.

For about half a second.

"What the fuck were you playing at?"

What a question; was he playing at being a mayor, a leader, a rascal, a gentleman? The lines were starting to blur, but then so was everything else.

Hancock's arms shook pretty damn embarrassingly under his weight, and it was only when he couldn't quite take a breath that Pen dropped her gun to touch him, one hand on his quaking forearm and the other cupping his cheek.

"John?"

_She had called him John._

"Get up, get up, get up," she chanted desperately, and he did, he tried; because Pen asked him to.

She was there with him for his pathetic attempt, hands sliding over his chest to try and take his weight, but all it did was distract him – he didn't _have_ the spare blood for this little dance, right now.

"Come on, lean on me, I need to get you inside," Pen murmured, somewhere between pacifying and petrified.

Hancock wobbled slightly, the fall of blonde on his duster looking strange, until he realised her hands were covered in blood again and she had swept her hair back, red streaks through the gold.

At least it was his blood and not hers this time.

He was leaving an alarming amount of it behind him though, and he wasn't sure this shirt would survive another wash – which, really, was the true tragedy here.

That and the way he collapsed as soon as they got inside, making Pen stare worriedly at the broken door. It was hard to focus on her now, but she seemed to grit her teeth in determination and start kicking all the bloody bits of raider outside.

He thought he heard her talking, the worry she wasn't showing him evident in the high pitch of words he couldn't make out. It was gone when she came back in, but her brow was still furrowed, her eyes still over-bright.

The door didn't quite fit back into its place, but it was something.

There was a little voice in his head that wasn't very pleased about it though, because it wasn't safe and he was weighing her down, so what was she still doing here?

"Don't look at me like that," she muttered, wedging a chair under the door handle. "I'm not going anywhere and you're not dying."

"Don't be so sure about that," he replied weakly.

Pen stomped back to him like a petite storm contained in bloodied leather and knelt by his side, wincing as her bad leg bent but gritting her teeth to get through it. "Tell me what to do."

"S'not worth it," Hancock mumbled, but when she glared at him, he gave in – and maybe it was a good thing that this wasn't going to last, because he'd do anything for her.

Except live, obviously.

"Fine," he muttered, crumbling. "Inner-pocket, right side. Stimpack, not Med-X, need to jumpstart the healin' if I don't wanna bleed out."

Pen went to make some jibe about his array of pockets but baulked when she drew out the needle. "You want _me_ to…?"

"Yeah, kinda need you here."

Pen nodded, more out of agreement than confidence, but her lip stopped trembling when he reached out to cup her chin for the second his pain tolerance allowed him. "Hey, you'll be fine."

Her jaw felt so fragile under all that stubbornness.

She followed his instructions to the letter, and he couldn't help the groan of relief when warmth shot through his system even if the pain didn't fade with it. Pen watched him anxiously, her hand continually going to her Pip Boy, some sort of nervous tic or a lucky charm.

As long as it wasn't Pickman's card.

It took him a moment to realise he was timing his breaths to hers, and she was doing the same.

"Oh," he coughed, frown brewing on his brow as he tried to come to terms with something really fucking important.

"What, what is it?"

Hancock took a deep breath to try it out, and then another one.

"Turns out I'm not dyin'."

Pen blinked at him, and then her mouth twisted into this adorably angry moue and her fingers curved as if she was thinking of strangling him. "You arse!"

Hancock chuckled, but stopped with a dizzy little _woah_ when he tried to sit up and only succeeded in thunking back onto the floor, Pen's bag thankfully cushioning his head – although he could have done without the ceramic filling. "Amend that, might be dead to the world in a bit."

"A power nap I can deal with," she growled, "but if you die, I'll kill you."

"How's that work—"

"Why did you do it?"

Hancock's grin faded when those blue eyes fixed on him unhappily, and he frowned trying to get the words right in his head, frowned harder when his words slurred slightly with sleepiness dragging at his tongue.

He should have asked for the Med-X, he needed to heal and now his body was trying to shut down to do it.

"What's a few more scars on me? You didn't even have any tracks before today, you're all pre-war 'n' beautiful."

_Oh, shit. Had he said that out loud?_

Pen matched his frown, but hers was angry and upset. "What, but I get shot a few times, it makes me ugly, does it?"

Hancock blinked one eye, then the other. "No, just meant it seems a shame, maybe?"

"The world's gone to shit, but just because I remember a time that it wasn't doesn't make me some sort of hallowed messenger," she said bitterly, and looked at him as if he had disappointed her. "I still bleed just like everyone else."

She didn't understand; she couldn't when all she saw was a friend, and a ghoul, and not an idiot who saw open skies in her eyes.

Pen's hands had fisted on her thighs, so Hancock reached for one, wincing inwardly at the catch of his scarred skin against hers. "But I don't wanna see you bleed."

"But I will anyway," she said tiredly, and didn't seem to realise that she now held his hand in her two, her pale fingers twining with his darker ones.

It looked right, and so Hancock asked the only question he could in his fucked up state.

"Why can't I worry 'bout you?"

Pen didn't answer and Hancock felt a pit open in his stomach, but really, what had he been expecting? That Pen would see in him that same bright colour that he saw in her, that she'd be anywhere near as fascinated as he was?

That she'd ever love him?

He was a fucking fool.

Hancock scrubbed at his jaw painfully, but hesitated when softer fingers followed the movement, feather-light and apologetic as she said softly, "Because I worry about you, too."

He scoffed, trying not to hold Pen's hand against his cheek just to prolong the sensation, trying not to look at her in case he admitted something stupid. "What're you worryin' about me for? I've been shot a hundred times, an' I've been needled more. I always get back up."

 _But you,_ a clear thought whispered through the haze, _you might not._

Pen shook so very slightly, and her voice was almost lost under his rattling breaths. "Why can't I worry about you?"

Hancock's eyes whipped to hers, jet-grey to sky-blue, and her fingers twitched reflexively against his jawbone when his breathing stuttered for entirely different reasons. Surely she didn't mean it in the same way as he had. "What're you saying?"

"You cocky, insufferable ghoul," she murmured with what definitely sounded like exasperated affection, and it made him grin dazedly, the blood loss making everything seem a little bright – or maybe it was just her.

It was her, because she called him ghoul, called him John, called him _rascal._

"What're you saying," he repeated, and added with some ragged hope, "kitten?"

"Kitt—? Oh, bloody hell." Those bright eyes rolled, but her flush was a happy one. "It's 2287, and you're acting like we're in a fucking regency romance novel."

"Jus' 'cause I wear the hat so well."

Pen huffed a laugh, flicking the brim of his tricorne as she would her own missing hat. "Yes, you do. You'd give Darcy a run for his money any day."

Hancock had no idea who she was talking about, but he loved it when she smiled. "He doesn't have my charisma."

 

* * *

 

"No, that's true, he doesn't," Pen agreed, but she would have said anything, because she loved it when he smiled.

_Oh, fuck._

Pen's breath shuddered out, confusion a constant high pitch in her head.

This hadn't been the plan – even after the plan had changed with the onset of ice and gunfire. The plan had been to find out what had happened to the world, then it was helping the Minutemen, and then it had simply become _not dying._

Now it was not letting Hancock die either, because the thought was inherently _wrong,_ wrong not to see his roguish smile under those jet-grey eyes, wrong not to have him and his shotgun at her side, wrong not to know he _lived,_ somewhere, even if they were on opposite sides of the Commonwealth.

"I think I was the one with misjudgements though," she murmured guiltily, "not you."

Hancock must have seen something regretful in her expression because he offered dazedly, "You'll have to wear the hat then."

Pen's laugh was more of a wet breath than anything actually resembling amusement.

She'd been scared out of her wits the first time she had met a ghoul, but tolerance had never been a particular need in a time where war was on the horizon, when you were encouraged on every London Underground poster to snoop on your neighbours and not trust anyone.

The bombs had done rather the opposite, people in need _needed_ each other, and this ruined world was very much in need.

That ghoul had shared his food with her, but still told her to find a gun regardless.

_It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, friend, 'cept now the dog's a deathclaw._

That ghoul's rasp had stuck with her when she returned to a house she hadn't had time to know, when she had dug out the gun cabinet to find a service-stamped shotgun, when someone had tried to kill her for it.

That ghoul hadn't seen how Pen had thrown up at how easy it had been, to shoot, to kill; and it had just gotten easier over time.

Far, far too easy.

Hancock's eyes were closing now, long blinks and coarse sighs, but he still managed to touch her fingers and croak, "It'll be okay, kitten."

"Shit," she quoted at the same time as him, "but okay."

_Selfless ghoul._

This ghoul who called her beautiful when, by pre-war standards and her own, she was too scarred and too pale; this ghoul who called her fair when, by those same standards, she was a killer and a murderer.

This rascal who called her _kitten_ and put himself in harm's way so she wouldn't get hurt.

But he had hurt her anyway; not in the normal way, he hadn't shot or stabbed her like some of the people in the Commonwealth tried to do, but he had offered her an arm to lean against and a hand to pull upon, he hadn't expected her to be confident and callous when she didn't want to be.

She didn't want to be now, couldn't, because somewhere along the way, he had started shouldering her burdens and making her laugh, making her see a different point of view.

He _mattered,_ like so few things had before the war.

"Pen, I—" Hancock faltered, words stuck in a throat that seemed designed to kill him. "Shit, I'm gonna fall asleep."

"Then sleep," she soothed, palm pressing gently against his sternum so that she felt the moment he slipped into unconsciousness under her fingertips.

She had touched him before, braced against his chest when she stumbled, been comforted by his strong hand in hers, and she marvelled at the feel of him every single time. His skin felt like a reptile's, ridged but soft, the muscle solid and unyielding beneath the thin, almost scaly layer of flesh.

Hancock took his first easy breath, and Pen slumped in relief, her forehead tipping onto his chest as she inhaled the spent cartridges and Mentat scent of him, smoky and sweet.

"You asked for this," she muttered to herself, alone in world that felt barbarically suited to her. She had asked for the guns, for the survival, and in that haze of burn and bullets was Hancock, who might just make survival worth surviving.

Even when it meant living without tea.

Pen heaved a breath and set about checking his wounds, determined to build on her scant first aid knowledge as soon as she could. Most were clean – if you could call a stupidly gallant, irradiated ghoul clean – but she bound them all anyway, tearing up half her shirt in the process.

It made her smile to think of how he'd regret missing this.

Selfless, yes, but still a rascal.

Exhaustion was a lingering darkness at the edges of her vision when she was done, the remains of the Med-X slowly filtering away through her system just when she would have preferred that it stay a bit longer.

She had to stay awake, had to protect them both until the cavalry got here, until someone heard her pitiful message on a lone broadcast, but her aim was anything but steady and they had a bloody shameful excuse for a door.

She really didn't want to kill anyone else today.

Pen watched Hancock as the minutes passed, worriedly checking on his injuries and pressing his surprisingly warm fingers to her lips.

Sweet and smoky, like marshmallows on a fire; and she loved it.

 _Shit, fuck, bollocks,_ but she did, it reminded her of home, and now it would remind her of him.

She loved her guns, her dog, her burned out corner of Sanctuary, the clearer stars and interesting smells. They were all post-war loves, new things that burned through the ice of the past, but a person? That was the first _normal_ thing she had loved since waking up.

It didn't say much for her sanity.

It wasn't some consuming passion, it wasn't even something she felt in her gut, she just knew that when he spoke, she wanted to listen, and when he smiled, she smiled too.

Spoke with a voice that wasn't the slap of sea against stone, but whiskey on the rocks; a smile that wasn't a baring of teeth, but the most roguish thing she had ever seen, like a pirate with a combat shotgun and eyes that glowed golden in the night.

She was so fucked.

She didn't know what to do now, what to do _after._ They both had things to do in a world that wasn't ending, but beginning; Goodneighbor needed a mayor and Sanctuary needed a whatever-the-fuck-she-was.

She didn't know how to say that she didn't want him to go, because in all honesty she didn't know what to do with him if he stayed.

It wasn't as if there was a bloody manual for this.

_So You've Fallen for a Ghoul._

' _The Sunday Times'_ #1 bestseller right there, fucking hell.

 

* * *

 

If he was dead, it shouldn't hurt this much, so Hancock guessed that he must be alive.

Well, shit.

He was gonna owe Fahrenheit those caps now, and Pen a new hat.

_Pen._

Hancock inhaled awkwardly, one eye squeezing open as he tried to deduce where he was – because there was way too much noise for them to still be on the road, and Goodneighbor didn't sing fucking camp songs.

Pen was standing at the door of the nicely decorated room, shoulders tense and unhappy. They had to be at Sanctuary judging by the thrum of conversation and generators, but she was still pacing like a guard dog.

The low lantern light danced over her face, shadowing her eyes and highlighting her cheekbones, until the scar that threaded over the left one seemed to glow like an indicator on a compass.

"You still pissed at me?"

Pen whirled at his croak and practically pounced onto the bed, her frown belied by her grateful sigh. "Yes, very."

Hancock huffed a pained laugh. "Figured."

She hovered, not quite touching him but her fingers squeezing in on themselves as if she wanted to, her brow darkly lined and her mouth too tight as she eyed the numerous bandages criss-crossing his bare torso.

"What're you worryin' 'bout me for," he rasped, realising too late that he had said it earlier, and his chest gave an uncomfortable lurch as if he was a kid with a crush and not a motherfucking mayor who had every damn intention of winning her over. "Part an' parcel, darlin', I get cool eyes an' heal quicker."

Pen didn't look convinced, but she did settle on the bed with a pained grimace, braced above him in a fall of knotty golden hair.

Fuck, but he could get lost in those eyes, shadowed in the dark but still so bright.

"'Sides," he ventured, gnawing at a lip he didn't have, "I'd take a bullet for you any day."

Pen scowled, but he didn't care when she leaned a little closer – and he always loved it when she bit back. "It'll come from my fucking gun if you pull that shit again."

"S'fine, it's still worth it."

Pen exhaled, forehead nudging ever so slightly against his as if she couldn't help it, like the kitten he thought her. "You really are impossible, you know that?"

"Says the two-hundred-year old popsicle."

"Says the ghoul who wants to lick it," she countered, and immediately flushed when his happy grin felt as if it would split his face.

"Yeah," he murmured roughly, "I do."

Those blue eyes widened, and he realised just how close she was, so very close that he could feel her sharp little breaths and the tickle of her hair and the weight of something so fucking massive it actually hurt.

Pen shone like a clear sky after a Jet bender, bright and beautiful.

"Oh, bollocks," whispered from cupid's bow lips that suddenly eased against his mouth, cautious and careful and so fucking captivating that he thought he must have died and someone had just given him the wrong directions to hell.

There was supposed to be more fire and brimstone and less candlelight and kisses.

Not that he was complaining, because if this was his eternal damnation then he really fucking wasn't.

Pain lanced up his side when he shifted his weight, but he didn't care, he'd fight a deathclaw unarmed just to get his hand against Pen's cheek, just to guide her closer when she hesitated.

 _Yeah, don't worry about the nose thing,_ he wanted to say, but nothing could have pried him away from the intoxicating tartness of her mouth, like a berry on a vine or some rare flower she used in her tea, lips as soft as the petals but her nails as sharp as the thorns.

Pen hummed lightly when he touched her, and to be honest he was having a difficult time not coming apart at the seams or possibly floating into space, a groan escaping him when she leaned into his hand.

His fingertips brushed along the softness of her throat, and she shivered when his callouses caught at her fluttering pulse.

Fucking hell, she liked it.

The sound of her name from outside shocked them into jerking apart – or, more accurately, Pen into pulling away and Hancock into hissing at the pain and potential – his hand hovering in mid-air before it fell uselessly back onto the bed.

He wanted to hold her there, to spill his irradiated heart with things he didn't understand and hadn't even thought through, but Pen was right, it was 2287 and they weren't in a fucking regency romance novel.

His tricorne was as much of a crown he was ever going to get.

Pen only went as far as the doorway, blocking whoever it was from coming inside, but he saw her fingers go to her lips as she listened, her reply a murmured order that was followed immediately by the sounds of departing footsteps and fading voices.

It was then that Hancock noticed his duster hanging up on a coat stand, his tricorne propped on top of a peg that held Pen's jacket.

This was her room.

He _really_ liked the idea of being in her bed.

"You got some clout with the Minutemen then?"

Pen dragged her fingers from her lips, something hunted about her stance. "Something like that."

Hancock frowned, not liking the way she wasn't comfortable anymore, but then he remembered the hat they hadn't found and the dog tags her people must have seen on her wrist, and then he laughed. "Oh shit, you're their leader, ain't you?"

"General," she corrected sheepishly. "Their word, not mine."

"Well, fuck me," he murmured in amazement, and he saw why she wandered alone as often as she could – until he had come along for the ride.

Which meant that the Mayor of Goodneighbor had just kissed the General of the Minutemen.

Fuck, they were gonna string him up alive tomorrow.

Pen came back to him with a nibble of that sweet-tasting lip, the bed dipping under her weight, and her hand found his as it had whenever shit was hitting the fan.

Maybe it wasn't all so bad.

"Surprised me, too," she admitted, but he wasn't, not really. Pen was cool under fire, ruthlessly fair, and _disliked_ the power that came with it. That was always a good sign, it was one he empathised with.

"S'not 'cause you're pre-war," he said, accurately guessing why she had hated him reminding her of it. She gave him a dubious look so he shook his head, squeezing her hand. "Everyone's always gonna be amazed at that, no gettin' away from it, but d'you think everyone that woke up two hundred years later would just _get on with it?_ "

"I had to, it was that or starve."

"Most probably would, easier that way, but you set out an' made somethin' of it."

"I had help," she reminded, apparently reluctant to take any of the credit, and it made him admire her that much more.

Because it wasn't like he was already royally fucked.

"People that helped 'cause of _you,_ you rally people, s'inspirin' – an' people need somethin' good these days."

Pen muttered something under her breath about false idols and it made him laugh, a rough scrape of his lungs as he remembered her almost calling him omnipotent when they first met.

Funny how he was powerless around her now.

Fuck, what a shit-show, in the space of a few weeks he had gone from a mayor with only memories of battles and bruises, to a roaming one with too many.

He had loved every second of it, but it was taking its toll – and not just on him. Pen was scrubbing at her eyes and wincing when she moved. He'd bet his own tricorne that she hadn't let anyone look at her leg.

She needed to sleep, and eat, and laugh, and weren't her people looking after her? It had to go both ways when you put someone like her in charge; she would look after everyone else until she forgot to look after herself.

Hancock gave a small smile when he thought of Fahrenheit bullying him into eating.

He folded his other arm behind his head, and gloated when she followed the movement raptly. "There were easier ways to get me into bed, y'know."

She gave a scoff that turned into a hum – and he was never going to be able to hear it without remembering how it felt against his skin, without wanting to feel it again, and again, and again.

"This way I can keep you there," she teased, but it was said a bit uncertainly when her fingers settled on his chest and he inhaled hoarsely, as if she was waiting for him to rebuke her, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

He knew how that felt, but he was used to waiting.

Pen wasn't.

"I don't know what I'm doing," she whispered tiredly, and the honesty of it speared him right down to the brittle bones. The gunmetal gleam in her eyes had softened to something molten and pliable, and he wondered if she dared show that to anyone else.

Pen might have set out to claw her claim, but it had clawed her back and left her limping.

"Neither do I, kitten," he admitted, and pulled her fingers up to press a kiss at their tips. "S'just about survivin' one more day."

" _One More Tomorrow,_ " she murmured, and sleepily mirrored the smirk that tugged at his cheek.

The lyrics floated through his head and he nodded, harder when he realised the depth of meaning behind that hopeful little smile – even if it was interspersed with a yawn.

They would take this one day at a time, he could manage that.

When her jaw cracked with the next yawn, he gave her an enquiring glance, the same as he had done over their campfire. "I'll hold you now instead of waitin' for tomorrow though, if that's all right."

Pen nodded emphatically, practically collapsing as if she had been waiting for an invitation, but she carefully picked her way alongside him, ever mindful of where he had been shot.

It felt natural for him to lift an arm and for her to nudge her head against his chest, his chin against her hair and her inhaling happily. They had survived another day, and that was enough for now.

It would be enough until he could figure out what the fuck he was going to do next, because Goodneighbor felt damn far away right now, and Pen, well, she was in his arms.

Never let it be said that he didn't have his priorities straight.

Hancock curled his fingers into Pen's hair, pleased that they could do this laying down for once. "Really, not under the covers with me?"

"Nice try," she muttered, and he snorted a soft laugh, content with holding her close as she drifted off into tomorrow.

The only thing with taking one day at a time was that he might very well regret not telling her how he felt whilst they were still cocooned from the outside world, because tomorrow was a different day; it wasn't just the two of them and the adrenaline anymore, it was eyes and ears and the lack of a nose, it was her people and his.

Tomorrow brought problems, it brought reality, it brought politics instead of gunfire, and he hated that.

Pen sighed his name in her sleep, and Hancock couldn't help but smile.

Tomorrow could wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you think, needs a sequel? Maybe one with a dramatic rescue and breathless kisses and everyone else telling them to just call it a bloody relationship already, hm? (Fahrenheit's started a pool on how long it will take them to realise they're disgustingly in love, so get your bets in.)


	5. Jet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These next six chapters used to be "Trips in a Tricorne," but after a truly harrowing week of starting a new job and being told my first chapter was "dull" because "it started in the middle of nowhere", I decided to axe the separate fics and just jam 'em all in here, because apparently the other way was too confusing for some people. It was supposed to bring more structure to Pen and Hancock's story, parcel out a nice beginning-middle-and-end, but hey, herding cats is never meant to be easy, so here we are.
> 
> All of my thanks to the wonderful InkQuery, who helped keep this fic (and me) going, and endless love to those of you who commented on TiaT. You are, without a doubt, the Vault-Tec lunchboxes of my world.

> If today was not a crooked highway  
>  If tonight was not a crooked trail  
>  If tomorrow wasn't such a long time  
>  Then lonesome would mean nothing to you at all  
>  Yes, and only if my own true love was waitin'  
>  And if I could hear her heart a-softly poundin'  
>  Yes, and only if she was lyin' by me  
>  Then I'd lie in my bed once again
> 
> \- Bob Dylan, _'Tomorrow is a Long Time'_

Hancock didn't know what other ghouls dreamed of, whether they dreamed at all. He dreamed of the same things he always had; his parents, Diamond City, the endless Commonwealth, nameless faces in a surging crowd.

Sometimes he had nightmares, but those had changed.

The nightmares of before were simple things, the ones that everyone had; a sense of dread, the need to escape, the overwhelming fear of being chased. Now, after one experimental needle, he was the one that chased, he was the one people escaped from, and yet he didn't dread what he had become.

Maybe that was why the nightmares worked so well, guilt was a clever beast _._

It clawed at him the way yao guai traps claw at unsuspecting raider legs, harsh metal in yielding flesh and harsh blame in a yielding mind; he was caught, and he was bleeding. On a sunwashed bed in clean white sheets, sightless eyes flickered under scarred eyelids, sharp teeth gnashed and blunt nails scratched, and Hancock fought not to fall.

It was impossible not to, his bloodied fingerprints already marked the walls of his mind. They always would, because he had fallen from the moment he had stuck that needle in his flesh; he fell because he had jumped.

Fear flooded the puncture wounds, fear coated his tongue and squeezed his throat, fear that told him he belonged _under_ the bed, _inside_ the closet, _hunkered_ in the shadows. Fear was not his fucking friend, fear was an unfamiliar drifter to a mayor who didn't have time to be scared, who didn't have time to hide when there was far more fun to be had _on_ the bed.

Fear waited until he slept, and then it crawled inside him.

It started out like the others, he was at home – home before the drug, before Goodneighbor, and it wasn't home anymore, maybe it never was, just as the hit had never hurt in real life, it had felt like flying.

_It was worth it._

The pain began in his toes, between the biggest one and the next, a pinprick of hurt, and then it spread. It spread like fire decimates a forest or oil suffocates a lake, it taints him, it taunts him, and it terrifies him.

The smiling faces he saw before turn to ones of horror, but they don't all turn away from him, some of them reach out, and those are the worst, because he knows he'll taint them, too.

He can see his gnarled fingertips ahead of him, tries to pull them back, tries to stop, but he can't, he never can, and the bubbling of his newly radioactive blood seems to demand something in a soundless voice, in a silent snarl and shuffling feet. It wants him to take their hands, it wants to spread, to snare, to strangle.

It's in them too, now, that same fear, that same _anger,_ anger which rears its head when his shotgun's in his hand and there's blood in the air and he wonders whether he enjoys it a little too much, whether it's catching, whether he's turning, because in this hellish plane the grey film over his eyes shrouds everyone else's when he touches them.

Fuck the bombs falling, fuck the drugs, one scratch from him and he would tear humanity from their very breaths, he would watch them turn into hungering things and see himself in the milky sheen of their eyes.

He was poison.

Hancock knows them – _knew_ them, they're all gone now, dead or deserted or driven off – and that makes it easier. A part of him knows it's a dream because Diamond City was long gone by the time he slid that needle between his toes, he knows because he's had this dream before, he remembers it. He can remember who writhes on the floor and who shrieks, he remembers his friends denying him and his mother damning him, he remembers when it ends.

When it should.

The caustic bubbling's still there, waiting for another, _wanting_ another.

On that same sunwashed bed, Hancock murmurs desperate things past chapped lips, protests and pleas and prayers. There's sweat pooling about his spine, it tracks ghostly fingers on an unseen breeze up his back, and one more person holds out a hand, too soft, too sweet, too sublime.

 _It'll be okay, rascal,_ she whispers, but it won't, it never is, it's always shit and it's never okay, and he tries not to touch her, but he does.

Hancock watched sky blue eyes drown in grey storm clouds the exact same colour as his own, and he wanted to die.

Instead, he woke up.

Alone, in a strange bed, in a strange place, and for the hundredth time he wondered if he had gone feral.

It was sight more fucking scary than wondering whether the oven was still on, because the oven might burn the brahmin, but he would burn the world.

There was sunlight streaming in through frayed gaps in the makeshift curtain, and the smells of something cooking on the same breeze that had chilled his sweat-soaked skin, skin that heaved with every heavy breath and stung where his nails had dug into his palms.

Memory swept into the void the nightmare had left; he was still in Sanctuary, only a handful of hours had passed since the night before, and yet it all seemed a little too idyllic. He couldn't be sure this wasn't just another facet of his mind trying to screw him.

Swinging his legs out over the side had him inhaling a pained breath, his trembling hand going to the myriad of bandages on his chest – unchanged, they hadn't been changed since he had fallen asleep and dreamed of death.

Dreamed of losing blue eyes to something he couldn't stop, couldn't fix.

"Pen?" The worry in his voice was marred by the huskiness of dehydration, making it sound demanding, desolate, and he coughed into his palm to try and clear it, to distract himself from needing a hit of Jet.

He always banged through an inhaler or two after a bad night, and this had been fucking bad with the morning swiftly getting worse. Pen had gone, probably driven away by seeing him in the garish morning light.

Fuck, he hoped he hadn't hurt her in his sleep. Fahrenheit told him that he thrashed when the nightmares were particularly horrific, that he mumbled names of people long gone.

Pen had said his so sweetly last night, too, and then he had fallen asleep, fallen into the clutches of dreams and awoken bereft, as if radiation had stolen more than just his looks.

Tomorrow had come and it fucking sucked, just as he had known it would.

His footing wasn't quite steady, and when he looked down it was too see a rug covering the cold floor, something bright and soft. The entire room was bright, actually; he hadn't seen it in the candlelight yesterday but there were blankets and pillows everywhere, framed landscapes on the walls.

It looked like a _home._

"Pen?" It travelled further this time but it was still little more than a croak, and Hancock scowled at nothing as he grabbed for his duster and struggled to put it on, lamenting his lost shirt.

This self-sacrificing bullshit was a joke; it was fucking painful, even if it had earned him a kiss that had seared itself into his memory, just like the drug had seared its way through his body.

Poison might taste sweet, but it was savage.

_It was worth it._

"Pen." It was barely a whisper as he looked around the empty hallway, forearms bracing in the doorways whenever dizziness threatened to overcome him.

There were voices outside, faint even if he strained, but they were full of laughter, and one of them sounded familiar. Hancock lurched towards it, the front door almost felling him when it stuck upon opening, leaving him blinking into the noon sun with his sleeve shielding his eyes.

"It wouldn't do you any harm, you aren't allergic to soap suds."

It was Pen, Hancock could hear her but he couldn't see her. She sounded happy, happy in this place of domestic bliss and swept streets and— was that fucking _laundry_ hanging in the garden?

"Says you! I had a bath once, came out in a rash all over!"

Hancock frowned, head turning away to try and hear the other person better. He recognised that voice too.

"That wasn't the soap, RJ, you're just a mucky pup – and I mean that literally," Pen laughed, light and carefree.

Hancock ducked back inside when a few strangers across the road stopped in their tracks to stare at him, and he was half-tempted to tell them to fuck off when the door opened again.

"Hancock?" Pen's happiness from outside drifted away for a brief, terrifying moment, and then her eyes slipped from his.

The blue was still bright, not covered in clouds like his, never would be, mustn't; it was a litany, one that thundered in his chest, and he refused to entertain the notion that she was safer without him, even though she had left this morning, even though she couldn't meet his eye—

Oh, wait. She was checking him out.

"I couldn't find you," he rasped when she determinedly looked at the ceiling and pretended as if her mouth hadn't parted the tiniest little bit.

Okay, maybe this self-sacrificing shit wasn't all bad.

Without those sunglasses, Pen couldn't hold a poker face for shit – which obviously meant Hancock was going to insist on a game at some point, and the rules were strip or bust.

Both were pretty damn good.

Pen briefly peeked at him, but she did it again when he nervously touched his neck and it pulled his duster apart, her attention like warm water over his bare chest. "I went to get you a shirt, thought you needed something to wear."

"Do I?" Hancock teased, earning the forcibly unimpressed look he wanted. "I s'pose I can always take it off again."

He was expecting the frown, but it was flustered and he wasn't sure why, so he closed the short distance between them and very slowly chucked her chin, waiting until she looked up.

One day at a time, he remembered that even if tomorrow had come too soon, but sometimes he couldn't help himself.

Those blue eyes snared him all over again, and his fingers clenched reflexively when his dream seemed to claw at the edges of his mind, clawed like his fingertips had at soft skin.

"Thanks, kitten," he murmured, hoping she wouldn't notice the flicker of fear in his face, nor the stink of his sweat, but all she noticed was the pet name, and gave him a surprised smile.

"You're welcome," she replied automatically, but the way she leaned into him, that was all her, and he wasn't quite sure what she was doing until her arms hooked around his waist. "I meant to be back before you got up."

"Should've woken me," he mumbled into her hair, savouring a hug that wasn't a result of near-death or a gunfight, but something that just said, _hey, it's you._

"You needed the rest," she chided fondly, nose nudging into his duster.

Hancock kept expecting her to pull away even though he didn't want her to, a part of him still convinced this wasn't real, so he joked, because that was what he did when he felt bared to the bone, that and scrabbled for some Jet. "You watchin' me sleep?"

Unfortunately, she moved back to raise an eyebrow. "Yes," she drawled sarcastically, "whilst worrying over you all morning, I spent some of it just watching the sunlight play over your face."

Hancock stared after her as she walked off, a frown over his smile at that detailed description – because it sounded a lot like what he had done on the rooftop in the firelight. "Did you?"

Pen didn't answer him, and his smile turned into a grin when she waved the shirt over her shoulder and called exasperatedly, "Will you just put this on, please?"

Hancock followed her into the bedroom, folding his arms as he leaned against the doorway. "Y'sure you've looked your fill?"

"Are you sure you don't want me to shoot you?"

Hancock wasn't sure if he was dizzy because of the blood-loss or because he was enjoying himself. "Why, so you can keep me locked up here?"

Pen threw her hands up in the air and thrust the shirt at him, her mouth struggling to say stubborn when it curved upwards at the edges.

Fuck, he wanted to kiss her.

He tried to catch at her wrist, but the shirt sleeves got in the way and he missed, her smile the last thing he saw before he sat on the edge of the bed and dropped his face into his hands, because without her right there, everything seemed unreal again.

He had absolutely no fucking clue what he was doing.

He'd been like this before, unsure where he stood in the world, after the drug – because, sure, it had been worth it, but there was nothing like that first high, and he felt as if he had spent the rest of his life chasing it again.

He felt it with Pen, just a taste, just the edge of the whip that sent his nerve-endings buzzing, sweetly when she smiled and savagely when she bit.

 _Fuck_ , now he was thinking about her teeth, about her nails, about her skin, and seriously it was not the time – not when they were smack bang in the middle of Minutemen territory, not when he had a life to get back to, and not when she was still settling in to a world that was pretty much out to kill her.

Hancock, he was used to that, he was born second-best to a brother who outlawed him, and born again in a body that made him an enemy on sight to most people. That was his curse, his gift, his fucking _life,_ because immortality had made him its bitch and this freakshow wasn't going to end anytime soon.

Pen deserved better than being brought along for the ride.

Although it would be a damn well-dressed ride if the shirt she had given him was any indication. Slipping it over his head – and being tempted to ask Pen for a _helping hand_ – revealed a lengthy sort of scarf sewn into the collar.

"Whose fuckin' shirt is this, it's weird," he grumbled as he walked back into the living room, but hesitated with his fingers fidgeting against his skin when he saw Pen staring oddly at him. "What?"

She took a moment to find the right words, and once again it felt like being bathed in warm water when she looked him up and down. "I never thought I'd say that those frills suited you, but they did."

Hancock gave a sheepish laugh, hands sliding down his chest and missing the ruffles he was used to. "They're a good look, right?"

"It's the whole ensemble – although I wouldn't put it past you to wear one with jeans, or a tux," she admitted, and then immediately nibbled a lip. "Ah, damn it."

"What?"

"Nothing," she said dismissively, but that ridiculously telling flush told him otherwise, told him that Pen damn well liked the freakshow, actually, and fuck she might want season tickets.

He _knew_ those shirts had been a good find, a forgotten box in the back of an ancient tailors and Fahrenheit mocking him relentless for weeks – he'd had his revenge when they found a stash of super bright hair dyes, she and Newton had fought over those for hours.

"S'alright, I got more at home…" Hancock trailed off when he realised what he had said, when he realised how far away _home_ was right now, and yet how close it seemed.

Responsibility was a bitch, and radiation had only made it worse; radiation had just given responsibility ten more arms and a mouth filled with teeth.

Pen tilted her head to the side, giving him an out by simply saying, "Good, it's bizarre seeing you without."

She held out a hand, and for a moment Hancock talked himself out of taking it, just in case those bright eyes dulled like they had in his dream.

"Come on," she encouraged, fingers wiggling, "there's someone I think you'll know."

Hancock always found himself taking breaths around her – bigger ones than usual, the ones that thumped out afterwards – and he took one now when his rough skin slid against soft.

He wondered if she remembered his hand stroking her neck.

They stepped into the blinding sunshine and he remembered again that now was really not the time, and he also remembered to thank whoever the fuck this weirdly-shaped shirt belonged to, because it hung just low enough to hide his _huge_ —

Pen squeezed his fingers before letting go, and Hancock looked up.

Holy shit, now the nickname he had heard made sense. RJ, Robert Joseph—

"MacCready," Hancock called as they approached a table strewn with bullets, so familiar a sight it was as if the kid secreted the damn things, "as I live an' breathe."

"Mayo—?" MacCready wisely cut himself off when Pen threw him a warning look – which was probably for the best. The locals didn't need to twig who the random ghoul holding their General's hand was just yet. "Uhh, hey… you."

"Smooth," Hancock dead-panned, but despite his amusement, he had to wonder what Pen had told the others about him, whether she had told anyone judging by the inquisitive looks they were getting. "Pen pickin' up strays now?"

MacCready always shot back, it was what Hancock liked about him, and the little shit glanced at Pen with a smirk. "You tell me."

"Very funny, kid."

That earned him a scowl from MacCready, but a surprised laugh from Pen.

"You earn the cutest nicknames, _pup_ ," she teased, and it was done so very easily that Hancock almost thought they had known each other for ages – and the thought didn't sit right with him.

Even if MacCready did toss an embarrassed glare Pen's way at the pet name.

Hancock cleared his throat, taking a nonchalant step forwards so he could stand at Pen's flank. "Where'd you two meet then?"

Pen slid a sly smile MacCready's way, and for some reason it made Hancock scowl.

"Shall I tell him, RJ? Or would you like the honour?"

"Third Rail," MacCready stammered, nodding as if to try and put some validity into his shit lie. "Where else?"

Pen made a disappointed clicking noise with her tongue. "See, that might've flown if it wasn't for the fact that Hancock knows very well I first went to Goodneighbor only a few weeks ago."

"Fu— uh, _frogs._ "

Pen's amusement cranked up a few notches, and Hancock was starting to get a little irritated with a guy he actually quite liked. MacCready was fun, always up for some trouble – but it wasn't so funny when that trouble involved Pen.

"I found him in a little store in Lexington," Pen said, and skipped back when MacCready tried to swipe at her. It brought her against Hancock's side, and he fought not to pull her closer. "He was looking for comic books."

Hancock was briefly distracted from his bizarre territorial urge to raise a brow at the now-pouting MacCready. "Seriously?"

"Screw you!"

Pen tutted, tone patronising. "Is that technically a bad word?"

MacCready threw his hat at her, and Pen hid behind Hancock's back, peering out to call in a sing-song, "I'm gonna tell on you."

Hancock blinked, suddenly recognising what was going on when MacCready stuck his tongue out at her but grinned when Pen put on his hat.

They treated each other like siblings – like siblings were supposed to treat each other, without the whole outlawing thing.

"It looks better on me," MacCready taunted, but Hancock barely heard it when Pen looked up to smile coquettishly at him, the brim slightly askew and her hair fluffy and freshly-washed underneath it.

"I'm gonna have to disagree," Hancock replied, and huffed a laugh when Pen preened with pleasure.

It turned out that the kitten liked to be stroked, and he was damn good at doing that.

MacCready's hat didn't have the same effect as her old one though, it hardened her somewhat, so Hancock flicked the brim like she usually did. "My vote's still for the tricorne."

MacCready reinserted himself into the conversation, despite Hancock quite forgetting he was there when Pen's smile softened. "You let _her_ wear it?! After I plied you with vodka for _months_ and you still didn't let me?"

"Cool your jets, I didn't let her…" Hancock trailed off when Pen nibbled her lip awkwardly. "Uh, seems she might've done anyway."

There was a story there, one of what she'd had to do to get him safely here, one he hadn't asked yet because just _being_ here with her was enough, let alone asking for all the nitty gritty details and sacrifices.

Fuck, he would have liked to see her in his hat though.

"It was just for safekeeping," she promised cheekily, winking when MacCready made outraged noises. "It looked better on you though."

Hancock weighed his head to the side in disbelief. "Again, gonna have to disagree, pretty fuckin' heartily on that one."

Pen laughed happily, propping MacCready's hat on Hancock's head before it was snatched off and put back on its owner's with a grumpy, "You have no respect for the hat."

"The hat's fine, I just don't respect you," Pen retorted, and faked a gasp when MacCready did.

It was such a child-like scene in this sunbathed street that Hancock half-expected a bird to land on his hand and tweet at him, something cute and not irradiated to shit that might peck his face off.

This was Pen's world now, she had brought a bit of the past with her and it turned drifters into settlers, it turned a base into a home.

"When're you heading back?" Hancock asked once they had sat around the table, Pen rhythmically putting bullets into clips.

MacCready leaned back on his chair, pushing bolts through the band on his hat. "I was going today, actually, Pen had me looking over their ammo stores."

Pen sighed, fingers squeezing her temples. "I seriously don't know what they do when I'm not here, I come back and the gun barrels aren't cleaned, the ammo's everywhere, and Sturges is on the roof bolting a turret to the tiles."

Hancock frowned at the last, and MacCready pointed over his shoulder at a soot-blackened wall, one with a clean area shaped suspiciously like a man. "It exploded."

"To _everyone's_ surprise," Pen muttered, but it turned into a sigh when a man in a hat very similar to Pen's old one walked up. "Preston."

"General."

Hancock tuned out, focusing on the way Pen's knuckles whitened around the ammo clips at her title, noticing the way she carefully thought over an issue before assigning names to roles. She clearly knew her people well, even with the short time she'd had to know them. That was Pen though, he could easily see her chatting with everyone, lowering guards as she went whilst keeping her own sky-high.

Now that Preston had approached, apparently that gave everyone else the all-clear, because the next few minutes were filled with settlers asking for favours and questions – and Hancock held his tongue when the entitled assholes demanded more than they deserved.

They had food and water, what the fuck did they need another radio for – and why ask Pen for one?

She was too good to them and it made him itch, itch for his own people, his own bar and his own streets, ones that were a little dim and mucky but he _liked_ them that way, he liked the way the wind whistled around the buildings and the chairs were battered and comfortable.

It was too _pretty_ here, as if these settlers had forgotten what went on outside their walls, what Pen did for them.

He knew he'd been gone too long when he started to miss doing the stock check with Fahrenheit, or patrolling the walls with Kleo and knocking back a glass with Daisy.

This was Pen's world, she had forged this little corner of the Commonwealth, and he had to go back to his.

Hancock waited for the queue to dwindle and Pen to start loading ammo again before saying, "You mind if I go back with you?"

Pen didn't look up, but the rhythmic click of her fingers faltered slightly, and MacCready glanced at her before shrugging. "Sure, it'll be like the old days."

Hancock grinned, pleased to have a steady goal again. "Old days are like, what, a year ago for you, kid?"

MacCready's expression went straight to unimpressed. "Y'know that's never been funny."

Pen had to look up then, smirk tugging reluctantly at her lips. "No, it is."

Hancock settled into his chair with a smug grin. "See? The lady knows."

Pen's gaze slipped to his, smile softening even as MacCready landed the two front legs of his chair onto the ground with a thump and a cheeky, "I'll get my stuff, let you old timers say goodbye."

" _That's_ not funny," they both replied to the tune of MacCready's snickering.

Pen watched him go, and Hancock wondered if she saw her brother in him when she murmured fondly, "He's a good kid."

"I'll take care of 'im."

"I know."

Blue eyes locked him into place even as he tried to relax, tried to give her the space that they both needed. Goodneighbor couldn't function without him forever, and Pen had enough on her hands here.

One day at a time, that was the promise.

"I need to see Fahrenheit," he explained almost apologetically, and she replied in the same fashion.

"I need to see Preston."

"I've gotta check on the stock," he added, a burgeoning smile mirroring hers.

"I'm due on the firing range."

She was making this too easy for him and they both knew it. "Somebody should make sure MacCready doesn't get lost."

Pen narrowed her eyes good-naturedly. "Right, because you always know where you're going?"

Hancock pointed at her, trying vainly not to laugh. "Hey, I swear that town had moved the buildings or somethin'."

"Oh, right, it wasn't that you were too busy telling me all about that time you _pranked the shit out of Ham_ and so we walked straight into that raider den?"

Hancock raised a brow. "You found two light bulbs in that den, don't pretend you didn't skip for the next hour."

"I don't skip!"

"You do, kitten, an' it's adorable as fuck."

Pen tried to roll her eyes but her smile just made it seem delighted rather than irritated, and they managed to laugh during the time it took to fetch his hat, to pocket the Mentats that Pen had found for him. They both knew it was just a distraction technique, and it finally failed when Hancock was one foot away from the bridge out of Sanctuary, and silence fell between them.

For a moment, with his tricorne on his head again, it was if they were only their titles, not Hancock and Pen but the Mayor and the General, and he looked about the town with his leader's eyes.

It was in good shape, for all it offered that domestic appeal, the walls seemed sturdy and the guard posts were always manned.

Pen might not enjoy it, but she did a good job.

"Anyone else goin' our way?"

MacCready rested his sniper rifle across the backs of his shoulders and scoffed, "What, you don't think I can keep your ghoul butt safe?"

"It needs special attention, it's my best feature," he said seriously, but grinned when Pen laughed.

"Not yet, we have a few traders looping up but not for a few days. I'd ask you to wait but…" Pen trailed off, but it was with an understanding smile. "Maybe I'll come up with them."

"You should," he replied honestly, and added hastily, "If you're not too busy, I mean."

"I try not to be but," Pen flashed her teeth, "shit happens."

Hancock knew that bloodthirsty shouldn't be beautiful, but on Pen it was.

They were only a little away from the guards, MacCready was tapping his foot impatiently behind him, and Hancock didn't know what to say, didn't want to say anything when it felt like goodbye.

"If you need me," he began, but didn't finish the sentence, he didn't need to, because Pen's hand sneaked into his with a smile.

"I'll find you," she said simply, no overture of confidence, no denial that she might need help, might need _him._

"Good," he replied succinctly, and squeezed her fingers before dropping them and following MacCready.

"Hey," she called, and he could have cursed her for how fucking torn it made him feel. Pen met him halfway across the bridge out of Sanctuary, MacCready rolling his eyes in the distance, but Hancock didn't care, because Pen's hand rested on his chest and it almost felt as if his heart belonged in it. "If you need me."

"Kitten," he sighed, his own hand coming up to cup her jaw sweetly, "I think I already do."

Those blue eyes that outshone the sky above them blinked twice in quick succession, but she took a deep breath that steadied them both. "Then you know I'll find you soon."

The corner of Hancock's mouth quirked upwards, and in lieu of kissing her, he ran a gentle thumb over her lip. "I'm countin' the weeks."

He forced himself to turn away, finding it insanely difficult to let her go. It wasn't as if this was forever, it wasn't even as if there was even anything concrete between them, but it felt fucking wrong all the same.

"Count the days," Pen insisted.

 _Hours,_ he wanted to reply, _minutes._

Hancock looked back just once, just before the Red Rocket sign got in the way, and he saw a flash of blonde hair atop the highest guard post.

It was going to be a fucking long journey back.

He needed some Jet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MacCready was always RJ to Pen, but I can’t say it aloud without sounding like Pagan Min. _"Ajay, I say, Ajayyy?"_ And so little boy blue became _arj._ As always, I can be contacted on here or on [Tumblr](http://comehitherashes.tumblr.com)!


	6. Slate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is only half a precedent these days with GPS signals and radio broadcasts actually working through small devices like a Pip-Boy, but as the one in-game shows you where you are on a map, I'm making it a thing. Besides, I could do with a bit of make-believe lately; y'know, handsome ghouls and post-apoc worlds aside...

> Well, I came home  
>  Like a stone  
>  And I fell heavy into your arms  
>  These days of dust  
>  Which we've known  
>  Will blow away with this new sun
> 
> \- Mumford and Sons, _'I Will Wait'_

The sixth night was turning into the seventh day when the call went up, a pitter-patter of far off gunfire and Fahrenheit cursing a blue streak on the State House stairs.

It was the usual backdrop to Hancock's life, but it hadn't been getting him quite as excited as it used to. Time was when he would hear the alarm and he'd go running, eager for a fix of something other than chems for a change.

He'd been fixated on something else lately though, and it was a harder chase.

"It's those fucking Gunners, John," Fahrenheit spat, taking place by his window to peer outside. "Ever since you and MacCready left them that little present they've been baying for your blood."

 _Present,_ that was a good word for a bouquet of grenades – the trip wire had practically been the ribbon.

Hancock snickered tiredly and wondered if he had ever made that sound before. "You're doing wolves a disfavour comparin' those asswipes to 'em."

"Well, aren't you a fucking poet," Fahrenheit growled, kicking at a stack of empty Jet inhalers as she grabbed his slightly dusty shotgun from the desk. "Do me a favour and wipe your own ass with 'em then, yeah?"

Hancock frowned, trying to get his head around that sentence. "I'm high as a fuckin' kite here, Fahr, use smaller words – or easier phrases, I'm not sure which."

Fahrenheit rolled her eyes, but Hancock was saved from a chewing out by Newton who clambered up the stairs, this time sporting shades of neon green in his mohawk. "S'not just Gunners, there's drifters mixed up too."

Hancock stiffened, concern sapping away the edges of his dazed state. "Any of ours?"

Newton had been looking at Fahrenheit for the most of it, her wielding the biggest gun and all, but now he looked straight at Hancock.

"I thought I saw her."

Hancock had grabbed his shotgun from Fahrenheit's hands and was out the door in a second, the twist in the stairs letting him see her massaging her temples as if pained.

"You're a disgrace," she yelled, but he was fairly certain it was affectionate.

Probably.

"I know," he called back, and raced into the street to pull himself up onto the town's barricades, eyes squinting into the darkness.

A bullet pinged dangerously close to his head and then somebody grabbed at his duster, forcing him to a knee and face-to-face with Daisy, gun in hand and one brow raised.

"You tryin' to get yourself killed, Mayor?"

Hancock gave a her a harried grin. "Not today, Dais, not today."

"Not _any_ day," Fahrenheit corrected sternly, and Hancock would have sheepishly agreed even if she hadn't been wielding her minigun. "Stand back, children."

"Wait," Hancock demanded with the sort of panic only the very high or very stupid possessed. "You might end up hitting Pe—"

"Are you telling me how to fucking shoot, John?"

Hancock noted the angry glint in her eye and wisely replied, "Uhh, no?"

Fahrenheit grunted, and didn't hear Daisy's muttered, "Good answer."

The rest of the guards winced when the minigun started its deafening rumble, but Hancock and Daisy put their eyes to the portholes and kept watch of the street, flashes of light appearing and dying as Fahrenheit met her marks.

"Somebody get the floods up," Hancock called in the brief pause of thunder, the huge barrel smoking with exertion. Fahrenheit was murmuring sweet nothings to her gun, but Hancock knew better than to taunt her for it after the state he'd been in this week.

Still, _pretty, pretty Ashmaker_ was going to get a pretty pink paint job one of these days.

The floodlights overlooking the streets surrounding Goodneighbor suddenly flared, lashing the buildings with blinding white light – along with one or two Gunners who were too dense to realise they could be seen.

One fell to the sound of MacCready's faint _aw yeah,_ but it was the second bang of a different sniper rifle that had Hancock almost leaping the wall to go looking for the source.

It had to be, _it had to be._

The all-clear sounded after a few minutes, minutes of Hancock watching the roads with baited breath, minutes of guns reloading and mouths shooting off, and then he nearly dragged the doors open himself.

The drifters came streaming in, one or two limping, most of them covered in blood or dust with some brahmin at their heels, and although they all nodded their thanks and a few called greetings to Hancock, he was too distracted to reply.

None of them were Pen.

He didn't understand, Newton had seen her before, he knew what she looked like, surely it wasn't a mistake.

The last person came through and Hancock had to admit defeat when the scavenging duties were given out, Daisy's eyes gleaming bottlecap-silver at the thought of any goodies the Gunners might have dropped.

"I'll go," he offered, and refused to entertain Fahrenheit's raised eyebrow with anything other than, "I'm just doin' what you told me to do."

"Sure, just don't get yourself shot howling at the moon."

"You're real funny," he rasped, deliberately pinging her gun with his finger as he walked outside with Daisy, each of them choosing a side of the street to comb.

"Howling at the moon?"

"Don't ask."

Daisy gave a quiet version of her usual laugh, but it still sounded like gunfire, just shot with a silencer.

Hancock wasn't sure who needed a shake more, him or Fahrenheit. They both knew why he'd come out here, because some stupid little part of him half-expected to see Pen, because she'd said _days,_ not weeks, and he was tempted to hang one of those Vault-Tec calendars on his wall and shoot out the squares.

Honestly, he was starting to annoy himself. He was like a dog chasing a bone, he needed to get a grip, he couldn't go jumping at every chance it might be her. She'd said that she would come, he just had to wait.

He fucking hated waiting, and he hadn't before.

Daisy was muttering something about second-floor shooters, so Hancock pushed his way into a building, stripped out from the inside way back when Goodneighbor had been formed. The first body he found was clean, as if someone had already picked it over, and the second turned out to be much the same.

Were the Gunners taking a leaf out of the Institute's books? Take as many out as you can and leave no clues was fucking annoying when he would – and just did – kill for a Mentat.

Hancock distractedly patted his pockets and didn't quite hear the scuffle from behind him.

"Looking for something?"

_You've gotta be fuckin' with me._

Hancock hesitated before he turned, and when he did, he saw that same hesitancy in a Cupid's bow smile, one hand on her holstered gun and the other clenched on a box.

Pen, standing in a lone beam of moonlight through the broken window and with a packet of Mentats in her hand, as if she was a fucking angel – one that brought his favourite chems and a different sort of _on high._

Instinctively, he looked her over, as he always did after a scrap, after he hadn't seen her for a while – be it a minute or a month. There was the other sniper rifle he had heard on her back, no new injuries that he could see, but she still kept her weight on her other leg, as if the bullet graze hadn't faded yet.

Fuck, he just wanted to hold her.

"You said days," he said hoarsely, wondering why his chest felt tight, why she was still all the way over there, why he felt like howling at the fucking moon.

"It's not technically a week yet," she replied, her voice soft and peaky as if she was worried about something but determined not to show it.

He didn't know what to do, how to move this along, how to know what she was thinking, so he just offered her a crooked smile and held out his arms.

She thudded into his chest so hard he almost swayed, and then he almost did again when he started laughing in relief. Relieved because she was okay, she was back, she was in his arms, because she was _with him_ again.

This wasn't quite a post-firefight hug, but it wasn't a hug for hug's sake either.

This one said, _hey, I fucking missed you._

"I fuckin' missed you," he admitted a little dazedly, and Pen gave a breathless laugh against his collarbone. It made her tremble just a little, and Hancock frowned, wanting to see her face but not wanting to let her go. "Is everythin' okay?"

_Do you need me?_

"Yes," Pen answered blithely, "everything's fine. There was just an… _overpopulation_ issue. We'd been gathering traders, they wanted guns and ammo for the trip south and Sanctuary is low on supplies as it is."

Hancock relaxed, but he kept his arms around her, grin growing wide. "So you took _gun_ to mean you an' walked 'em down 'ere?"

"Pretty much," she sighed happily into his duster, and when he chuckled, added in faux-affront, "I have _two_ guns, that makes me the caravan guard extraordinaire."

Hancock nodded and, in an undertone, said, "Right, an' not the General of the Minutemen?"

Pen seemed to think over this for a second before declaring confidently, "It's a clerical issue."

"Okay, kitten," he agreed, smiling ridiculously into her hair, and only pulled away slightly to say, "Still not found a new hat?"

Pen let him go, but one hand swept down his arm to twine their fingers together as if she couldn't help it. "There is no _new hat,_ there is only _the_ hat, and I've yet to recover it."

"Y'know some yao guai's probably eaten it—"

"Don't!"

Their laughter was interrupted by Daisy calling warily from the front door, but she lowered her gun when she saw Pen.

"Ain't you a sight for sore eyes?" Daisy received a less exuberant hug but, funnily enough, Pen was carefully looked over just the same. "You all right, doll, those Minutemen treatin' you right?"

Above Pen's laughing assurances, Hancock asked in surprise, "You knew?"

Daisy gave him the evil eye over Pen's shoulder, as if now that she was here, Hancock was only her second-favourite person. "If you did your own gossip work, John, you'd know too."

"Y'know I can't butter 'em up like you do, Dais," he said charmingly, and earned a wink for his trouble.

"I brought you this," Pen announced, drawing a book from her backpack, something old if the thick dust jacket was any indication – not that it had done its job well, because it was grey through-and-through.

Daisy still took it as if was worth its weight in gold, her fingers barely brushing the cover. "Oh, darlin', I didn't mean for you to—"

"It's fine." Pen interrupted, smile reassuring when Daisy could bring herself to look away from the book. "I found it in Concord, as luck would have it."

Daisy released a reverent breath. "What I wouldn't give to see the Boston library again."

"You will," Pen said simply, and it wasn't hard to see why people rallied to her, because when Pen promised something, you believed her, and she always delivered. "It's on my list."

"You don't have to do that," Daisy tried, but it was pretty unconvincing when her whole face softened hopefully.

"I do, books are important anyway, but if it's important to you, it's important to me." Pen said it so easily, such strength in that slender spine – and the sniper rifle snug against it – but still she stepped back slightly just so she could lean against his shoulder. "Besides, I'm fairly certain my library card's expired – if my library even exists anymore – so it's about time I start reading again."

Daisy cackled, holding her treasure to her chest as they returned to Goodneighbor, Pen's hand occasionally brushing against his as they walked.

"We should start a library here," he said suddenly, and chose to look at Pen's pleased smile rather than Daisy's sly one. "That show room downstairs is just gatherin' dust anyway, an' like you said, books are important."

"How generous of you, Mayor," Daisy commented with exaggerated innocence. "What's brought that on?"

Hancock opened his mouth and realised he didn't have anything clever to say, but before Daisy could implode with laughter, Pen interrupted, "I think it's a great idea, the books would probably be safer here anyway."

"Safer," he echoed with a smug nod, but both he and Daisy paused when Pen yawned loud enough for her jaw to crack.

"Get that one to bed, John," Daisy chided as if he were an irresponsible child, but she still managed to couple it with a mischievous look that lasted just a second too long. "Good night, you two."

"G'night," Pen murmured, and when Daisy was just out earshot, added fondly, "She thinks she's so clever, nosy parker."

"Comes with the territory of bein' the town's gossip-gatherer," Hancock laughed, and ushered Pen inside the State House when she yawned again, so very tempted to just pick her up and carry her upstairs.

He'd read something about that once, about stepping through doorways, but he couldn't remember what exactly.

A tired frown puckered Pen's brow. "Is it going to look scandalous if I'm here with you?"

Hancock mouthed the word disbelievingly and chuckled, "I dunno how to answer that, kitten, but between Daisy an' Fahrenheit, I don't tend to get reaped much in the rumour mill."

"Good," Pen replied sleepily, seeming to drag herself up every step before finally sinking onto the sofa. Her sofa, the one she always sat on. "It feels like an age since I've been here."

"You're tellin' me," he murmured, and wasn't sure what to do with himself, whether he should sit opposite her, or alongside her, or just drag her into his lap and simply _hold_ her.

He settled with sitting on the low table at her feet, close enough to have their knees touching, but not close enough to get carried away.

One blue eye flickered open to smile at him.

"If you're wondering why I'm here, it's to be lazy, I haven't slept properly since—" Pen cut herself off and hastily amended, "In a while."

Hancock watched her look at the floor, at the wall, at anything other than him, and wondered if he should tell her how fucking obvious she was – and how much he loved it.

He settled for an honest, _me either,_ and when pleased eyes met his, he wished he had the balls to tell her the truth.

In his defence, he wasn't sure he could handle the truth himself, but he knew admitting that he had been a solid gold _wreck_ since he got back wasn't exactly putting him in the best light.

_Oh, hey, Pen, y'know how you're dealin' with a lot of shit right now an' you wanted to take things slow? I think I might love you._

That would be totally smooth, it wouldn't scare her off _at all._

"Lazy, huh?"

Pen didn't comment on his oddly awkward reply, and simply said, "I want to see what Mayor Hancock gets up to."

"Boring shit," he replied automatically. "Dunno why you'd want to, s'all politics."

"I just do."

There was a stubbornness about her mouth, so Hancock just shrugged, mildly confused. "Whatever you want, can't say you won't be bored outta your mind though."

Pen hummed happily, eyes fluttering closed again. "You'd make maths fun."

Hancock frowned at that weird plural, but assumed she was just dead on her feet. "I gotta see Fahrenheit, check the newcomers have somewhere to sleep."

"Oh." Pen started to get up, a wince flickering across her face at the movement.

"Don't worry about it, I've already checked you." Hancock smiled when she looked up in bemusement, but when he deliberately glanced at his bed, she laughed.

"Since when do newcomers get the mayor's bed?"

"Since the mayor's been countin' the days 'til she shows up," he said with a grin, but when he held out a hand for her to take, she wouldn't take it.

"I'll wait up for you."

Hancock blinked, unsure what to call the strange sense of surprise currently coiling in his gut, but it was the good sort, the sort that made him duck his head and cough a laugh, the sort that made him want to get back as soon as possible so she wouldn't have to wait.

The sort that made him take off his tricorne and prop it on her head, her own surprised smile peeking out from under its brim.

"I'll be back in a bit, kitten."

He couldn't see her blush, but he was fairly certain he heard it when she replied softly, "Take your time."

Fahrenheit was waiting for him upstairs, and she took one single look at his hatless head before saying plainly, "You are so fucked."

Hancock sighed, and fuck it all if it wasn't a little bit pleased. "I know."

 

* * *

 

Pen woke up in Hancock's bed and smiled at the smoke-stained ceiling.

Sneaky ghoul.

She had to give him credit though, there weren't many things that didn't trigger her _what the fuck is it and how quick can I kill it_ alarm bells these days, but then she supposed that she had been exhausted.

Or maybe it was because she trusted Hancock even unconsciously now.

Pen rolled onto her side so that the wall was at her back, and stared at the profile of a ghoul who put himself between her and the unknown even in his own town.

Hadn't she done the same at Sanctuary?

He had been bleeding then, bruised, battered, and she would have bitten the hand off of anyone who looked at him funny, but her people had held their tongues – whether for her sake or their own, she wasn't sure, but she was grateful.

She had Preston to thank for that, Preston and his insistence she have her own call-code for if she got bogged down anywhere. She'd bitched for hours whilst Sturges tinkered with her Pip-Boy, filled with pre-war paranoia that someone would always know where she was.

_It will only broadcast when you want it to._

_That's what they want you to think,_ she had mimicked of a time gone by, but she could have kissed Preston when he showed up in that blood-soaked street, when he peered warily at Hancock's limp form but relaxed when she said that _ghoul_ had saved her life.

The Minutemen — _Preston_ — knew about loyalty, knew about being the last man standing, and most importantly he knew about trying so fucking hard to _not_ be the last one – even if he had been a bit displeased when he realised who it was draped over Strong's back.

She'd had to trade a week of wandering for that realisation, a whole week stuck at Sanctuary training settlers how to shoot, a whole week of not being able to hunt the _'excuse me, General— damn mayor of Goodneighbor'_ down.

Now her slate with the settlements was clean, chalk dust swept off by pale fingers growing gun callouses and rain that stung a little when it fell – and both were odd, both were a little _sad_ , but she found it impossible to be sad now, especially when Hancock would rub his thumb over her fingertips as if they were still as soft as puppy paws.

There was something new on her slate now, and she chose _slate_ as her mental state because she remembered the durable little houses in the green valleys, the grey sheet slabs painted dark by the damp, she knew they were tempered and tough, the things she tried to be.

She didn't look it now that her slate was marked with a tally every time Hancock made her smile, held her hand, called her _kitten,_ and there were quite a few lines already.

She couldn't look tempered when a bit of heat – a bit of _Hancock_ – made her flush, made her melt, made her forget for a moment that the world had burned.

Hancock was laying on his back, and Pen could see he was in his frilly shirts again, the ruffles resettling whenever he took a breath. She couldn't see his hat – or their jackets, for that matter – but she could see that she had stolen all of the covers in the night.

Guilt flared right where any prudishness might have once been, but even from her blanket barricade she could feel him radiating heat. It was probably wrong how badly she wanted to cuddle up against him – and not just for the hot-water-bottle benefits, but because he was _there,_ right there, expression easy in sleep and very faintly smoky and sweet.

Cuddles were just the beginning though, and she wasn't sure about the rest, not yet.

It was a hesitation she was grateful for when the sound of pounding feet on wooden stairs echoed around the room, and she froze when someone banged loudly on the door.

Hancock bolted upright, one hand going for his shotgun on the sideboard, the other flying out to cover her – from what, gunfire, or prying eyes?

Pen wasn't sure if she was meant to draw her gun, but as soon as she had heard the first heavy step her fingers had curled around the 10mm Hancock must have slipped under her pillow.

It didn't take long to realise that she wouldn't need it.

"Don't you fuckin' pick that lock, Fahrenheit!" Hancock yelled, scrambling off of the bed to get to the door. It was a small blessing that he tripped on his own feet and crashed to the floor, missing the stray chunk of wood that flew off when the doors were kicked open.

Fahrenheit walked in without a care in the world, so Pen snorted in amusement from the bed.

Curses erupted from beneath them, and they both watched Hancock pick himself up and gesture wildly around the room, shirt untucked and quite nicely debauched. "What the fuck did I just say?!"

"You said I couldn't pick it, so I didn't," Fahrenheit replied calmly, and jerked her chin at Pen when she laughed. "See? Your damsel gets it."

Hancock quickly glanced back at Pen to see her eyebrow raised at that surprising term, and then whipped back to Fahrenheit. "Are you _tryin'_ to piss me off?"

"I lost a bet," Fahrenheit replied cryptically, but Hancock apparently knew what she meant, because his jaw grit to the side.

"What the fuck d'you want, Fahr?"

Fahrenheit ticked off her fingers as she went along. "It's lunch time, the traders need seeing to, couple drifters want work, this is your noon wake-up call; pick none or all of the above."

"I have a clock, Kleo and Daisy deal with stock, you deal with work—" Hancock had done the same ticking off but going backwards, until he was left with one finger, his middle one. "—Fuck off."

Fahrenheit didn't seem at all fazed, and just looked at Pen, who was still sat on the bed and entirely enjoying herself. "Daisy wants to see you."

"We'll be down in five. Thanks, Fahrenheit."

Fahrenheit nodded, and then gave Hancock an unimpressed look. "You owe me 100 caps."

"I don't owe you shit," Hancock called as she walked off, the pair of them flicking each other the bird as Fahrenheit went downstairs and Hancock attempted to wedge the doors closed.

Hancock was muttering grumpily under his breath, but Pen just about caught, _fuckin' freeloader,_ and _gonna find the brightest pink I can._

It reminded her a lot of her and MacCready.

Her and her brother.

Hancock threw himself back onto the bed, hands on his face and fingertips over his eyes, as if the world was out to get him but if he just didn't _see_ it then it probably wouldn't be so bad.

Pen waited until his breathing slowed to tease, "Your damsel, huh?"

Hancock shoved a pillow over his head and groaned when she laughed delightedly.

 

* * *

 

Hancock was getting a bruise.

It was a coping method, and he was trying to cope because it felt like he was in a dream – one of the good ones, but still pretty fucking unreal.

Everywhere he went, Pen went too, and it felt nice to have a smiling shadow instead of just a scowling one.

Fahrenheit gave up punching him when he wouldn't stop grinning at Pen, but threatened him with some graphic dismemberment if he didn't finish up his work before the sun set.

It wasn't Pen's fault that he kept looking at her, that he laughed with her, that he wanted to get done quicker because he wanted to _be_ with her.

Okay, it was _kind of_ her fault, but only because he loved the way she smiled, because nothing should make his life seem easy anymore, just like his smile had been easy last night when he had come back to see her curled up on the sofa, his hat somehow still wedged on her head as if she hadn't wanted to take it off.

Carrying her to his bed had felt oddly momentous, and he hadn't been able to figure out what it meant, even after an hour of enjoying the sound of her soft, steady breathing, her presence as comforting as his shotgun – deadly, but far nicer to cuddle.

If he watched her sleep it was just to reassure himself that she was still there, that she was okay.

He wondered if that was why Pen seemed to enjoy watching him work, seemed to enjoy looking around and hearing everything that went on in Goodneighbor's mechanisms.

It was only when they were walking the streets and Pen asked her questions _after_ everyone else had gone did he realise what was going on.

She was taking tips from him.

Of course, she also gave him shit for jacking up the prices at Third Rail and turning away a trader who wanted water for free.

_For free._

"I'm not made of caps, kitten," he muttered, gaze roving the complicated sheet Fahrenheit had drawn up to show their costs.

Pen peered over his arm, scowling rebuttal fading when she saw how much they gave away in the form of food and water to people who actually _needed_ it.

"Why does the Memory Den take so much, surely they bring in more caps than they spend?"

Hancock played off his pause by pretending to look down his sheet, but inwardly he tackled turmoil. Pen would understand, she had defended Pickman for fuck's sake, and if she could see past the macabre façade of a supposed serial killer, she would do the same with synths.

But he had promised he wouldn't speak of it.

"The kit's expensive," he replied honestly, and changed the subject as quickly as he could. "What did Daisy want?"

"I'm going to see her when you've finished," Pen murmured, and didn't seem to realise – as he immediately had – that she was pressed up against him, her fingers curling over his forearm as she checked Fahrenheit's numbers.

When he should have said something but didn't, blue eyes suddenly flicked up to his. Pen's next breath catching in her throat, a throat that swallowed convulsively when his gaze dropped to trace it, knowing with a vaguely _hungry_ sort of knowledge that her skin was pale enough to bear his marks for a day at the very least.

It wasn't as vulnerable as the look that flashed over her face.

Maybe it was because he was used to riding the high of chems – and therefore used to riding the _need_ for them – but it was easier for him to pull away from the intensity of the moment, easier to offer a crooked smile and say softly, "I've finished."

Pen stared at him for a good few seconds before blinking rapidly, that tell-tale flush creeping up her cheeks. "Yes, right, Daisy, of course."

Hancock waited for her to finish a supposedly nonchalant cough before raising an eyebrow and smiling at her, enjoying her slip up a little more than was probably appropriate. "Have fun."

"Thanks," she stammered, but then hesitated before she turned to walk down the street, hand creeping into his just for a second. The flush was still there, but there was clarity in those bright blue eyes, and gratitude.

He might be used to riding the high, but it still burned just as fucking sweet.

Hancock watched Pen head over to Daisy's, having trouble focusing on the accounts when it was all he could do not to replay the moment over in his head, just as he often did with their kiss. Instead, he dragged his hand down his jaw and wondered when – and fucking _why_ – he had decided to be a gentleman all of a sudden.

"Your charms still don't work then."

Hancock might have jumped in surprise if it wasn't for the calm sunshine covering the streets – sunshine that must have followed Pen up from Sanctuary, because it had been fucking grim before she arrived.

Or maybe the weather had been taking its cues from Fahrenheit, a Fahrenheit who was suspiciously poker-faced as she made space for herself against the State House wall he was leaning on, and Hancock immediately knew why she was there.

If it had been business, she would have snatched the accounts sheet out of his hands and they would have bickered and corrected each other's mistakes; but she didn't, she simply watched, and waited.

Sometimes he hated how well she knew him.

Hancock aimed for bluster and missed by a mile. "What're you talking about?"

Fahrenheit gave a lazy shrug, her rust-orange hair almost blending in to the brick behind her head. "I had a bet with Delisle that I'd see skin when I broke the door down, I didn't – you losing your touch?"

Hancock looked at the best friend he had ever known, the one who had always offered to talk even though they both hated talking – the baring of hearts kind, the sappy shit – and knew this was one thing he had to talk about.

He didn't really know how to say it, so he did as he knew best, blunt and to the point.

Like a baseball bat wrapped with barbed-wire.

"Pen was frozen, Fahr, she's pre-war."

His voice seemed whisper quiet for some reason, and for the first time since he had come back, Fahrenheit didn't seem pissed off at him anymore. "Shit."

"Yeah," he sighed, and although Fahrenheit's expression both widened and worsened, it felt as if a weight had been lifted off of his chest.

" _Fuck._ "

"Yeah, I know."

"So do you—?"

"I think so."

"Does she—?"

"I don't fuckin' know," he exclaimed tiredly. "Could you if you'd just woken up in this fucked up world?"

Fahrenheit thought about that for a moment before giving a grudging agreement. "No."

"Exactly, an' look at me, I'm not exactly model material."

At that, she nudged him with her elbow. "Don't beat yourself up, you're not entirely ugly."

"Thanks," he drawled, and silence fell between them, the comfortable kind, and Hancock was reminded – as he always was – that Fahrenheit might be grumpy bitch when she wanted to be, but she was family. "Y'think I should—"

"Nope."

"Not even a little—"

"Well, that's fine, but don't jump into—"

"Yeah," he agreed grudgingly, "you're probably right."

"I often am."

Hancock gave an exhausted exhale of a laugh as he shook his head, five heartbeats passing before he could speak again. "Why am I mayor, Fahr?"

Fahrenheit looked at him as if he was stupid. "What sort of a fucking question is that?"

"I'm not lookin' for compliments here," he muttered defensively, the rough brick wall at his back scraping on his duster. "I just wanna know, 'cause I look at how I've been this past week an' I don't get how you ain't killed me."

"I came close," she replied, completely dead-pan, but Hancock knew to look for the faintest crinkle under her left eye. That was Fahrenheit's way of joking – that and injuring him for fun.

Fahrenheit rolled her eyes and took a deep breath, as if dealing with a particularly dense super mutant. "Look, I won't lie and say you weren't a complete fucking ass to deal with, but you got your shit together when you needed to – and hey, nobody died on your watch, that's always good, right?"

"Well, yeah, but—"

"But now you're fishing for compliments," she interrupted plainly, "shut up and take the rare one I'm giving you: you do all right by us, John. You always do."

Hancock had to smile then, and even though he ducked his head to hide it, Fahrenheit still whacked him right where his bruise was blossoming.

There was one forming on his ego when she added, "So you have a bit of separation anxiety, so what?"

Hancock fought something terrible that might have been called a flush. "Fuck's sake, Fahr, it's not like that. We're not— y'know."

"Please, you were like a lost calf."

"Fuck you."

Fahrenheit smiled then, showing all her teeth. "Lock it down or let it go, that's the way of the world, Chief."

Hancock scowled, harder when he knew she was being flippant on purpose. "Pen's not a fuckin' brahmin."

"No," Fahrenheit agreed, suddenly so very wise, "she's the girl who's made you a mess, but she's also the girl who's wrapped everyone around her little finger – even Charlie, and the last time someone tried that, he cut the finger off."

"I found that the other day, Kelvin's put it in a jar," Hancock commented absently, attention drifting to Pen as she and Daisy came outside to sit on a bench.

"Pay attention, you ass." Fahrenheit smirked when he offered a barely apologetic smile. "You're back to your old self today, but she's a wanderer, John, you try locking her down here and she'll hate you, she has her own people to deal with, so you gotta let her go."

The thought hurt, hurt something new and tender in his chest, something that had formed on the road and flourished when he had carried a precious weight to his bed. "Go where?"

"Away, she's been locked up in that freezer for 200 years, hella stir crazy. You gotta trust her to come back."

The painful thing about it was that he _did_ trust Pen to come back, it was just the going that battered him, and the waiting that bloodied him.

"Just like I trust you to come back," she added almost quietly, and when he glanced at her in surprise, she gave him a tight smile. "Goodneighbor ain't a ball and chain, John, and the day it becomes one it means it's time to move on."

"Not yet," he replied immediately, but when she laughed, realised that his leaving forever wasn't what she meant, she meant that he could leave, just like Pen could leave, and that was okay because they would always come back. "You givin' me permission to take a road trip?"

Fahrenheit tried not to grin and failed. "I'm telling you to calm the fuck down and live a little, it doesn't do any of us any good when you're moping about the place and huffing all the Jet. Go flirt with your damsel, go hunting raiders for a bit, just get out of my hair."

"What hair?" Hancock asked automatically, and Fahrenheit made a disgusted noise.

"You can't make that joke."

Hancock managed to dodge the next swipe at his bruise when he continued to laugh, but it filtered away into something quite content, something that reminded him that this was _home,_ right here on these unswept streets.

It just so happened that _home_ was people too, and two of them were sat on a bench and another one was stood right beside him, as she always was.

"You sure you don't have the Sight?"

"I told you before, John," Fahrenheit sighed contentedly, "I just know you."

"Too well," he muttered, but his mouth curved at one side when he saw Pen sneaking a glance at him, and it curved at the other when he winked and she flushed.

Fahrenheit scoffed, eyes closing as she leaned into a warm ray of sunlight, "I don't need the Sight to see what's going on there."

Hancock balled up the accounts sheet and threw it at her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I have some Welsh in my blood, I wanted to get some proper research done on where slate was quarried, and what do I find? _"The most important slate producing areas were in North Wales, like Penrhyn Quarry near **Bethesda.** "_ If that's not a sign, idk what is.


	7. Silver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As tends to happen with Pen's PoVs, I ended up writing some of Hancock's in there, because these two are so entwined that scene breaks mean nothing to them. Sorry for the delay, it's been a hectic few weeks but your comments keep me going. I'll answer as soon as I can, you all rock <3

> There's a time for us  
>  Someday there'll be a time for us  
>  Time together with time to spare  
>  Time to learn  
>  Time to care  
>  Someday, somewhere
> 
> \- Tom Waits, _'Somewhere'_

Goodneighbor was a serious place, it had to be when everyone was packing heat and most of its residents had washed arterial spray off of their teeth at least once.

It was serious to outsiders, to drifters who saw the stony exterior, the dirty streets and the assaultron who had chased the odd scammer out of town. Strangers saw a ghoulish mayor with a rust-haired shadow, they saw sub-automatics and a thriving chem trade, they saw _danger._

It was a façade its locals liked, it was good for business.

It was a lie.

Hancock was desperately trying to scrub pastel pink dye off of his hands, but the stubborn shit wasn't moving and so he carried on hiding for his life in Third Rail.

It wasn't empty by any stretch of the imagination, but there were only a few regulars sprawled on the sofas, the radio humming softly with Travis' suave introductions, and Magnolia sat at the end of the bar; Magnolia who – to Hancock's ears, at least – was flirting pretty damn thoroughly with Pen.

Who was flirting pretty damn thoroughly right back.

He was fairly certain they were doing it on purpose. They had to know he could hear, he'd been stuck under the bar and in danger of getting even more of his skin scarred up by Charlie's thruster since he had run from Fahrenheit twenty minutes ago.

They'd been here all last night, Pen and MacCready succumbing to sleep way before he and Daisy had, but this morning Hancock had convinced Pen to help him on a little errand.

It had been less an _errand_ and more a prank, and less _little_ than it was Fahrenheit's minigun.

In his defence, he hadn't expected the dye to stick quite as well as it did to the burnished silver, but that also meant his laughter was more nervous than it probably should be for a mayor of a whole fucking town.

Fahrenheit was going to kill him.

As if on cue, the double doors clanged open upstairs, and the harsh back-and-forth between Fahrenheit and Ham echoed around the refurbed train station, effectively silencing everyone as they tried to listen.

"Just tell me if he's down there, Ham."

"Who?"

Fahrenheit's growl made everyone wince. "Don't give me fucking _who!_ John, is he down here?"

"I haven't seen 'im."

"You won't see anything ever again if I go down there and he's sat on a fucking bar stool."

Ham's laughter sprang off the walls, but it was swiftly swallowed up by Fahrenheit's furious tread on the stairs. Hancock could almost feel her laser gaze sweeping around the room and congratulated himself on his clever hiding place – even if Charlie did keep knocking his hat off with a few wayward limbs.

"What can I say," Pen purred as if nothing was amiss – and Hancock's eyes might have widened at hearing that particularly sultry tone in Pen's voice, "I'm a soprano, I like to be on top."

Magnolia's husky laugh – _honey,_ as Pen had just called it – rang around the room, thankfully covering the noise Hancock had made, which had been something between a laugh and a groan.

He had to get Pen using those corny lines on him, he'd match her two for one – he wasn't known as the most charming ghoul around for nothing.

And he _really_ wanted to hear Pen use that tone again.

"Oh, sweetheart," Magnolia replied in kind – but this time Hancock could hear her smile and knew they were deliberately hamming it up because he could hear. "You're putting all sorts of lovely images in my head."

Hancock smothered a grin. Magnolia wasn't the only one.

He heard Charlie shift, heard one of his lenses focus on something, and it should have clued him in to the fact that something wasn't right, that shit was about to go down and blood would follow soon after.

"What are you doing here," Fahrenheit asked stiffly, and there was an odd amount of suspicion in it.

Hancock hadn't expected it to be aimed where it was.

"Enjoying the pleasant company," Pen replied, still with that overly flirtatious edge, and Hancock wondered if she was tactile when she pretended to flirt – because he knew damn well that she was when she did it properly.

Even if she did flush afterwards, and even though he loved that.

"Does John know?"

Hancock froze, but not because Pen might out him, but because Fahrenheit sounded very much like she was _defending_ him, because he wasn't there and Pen was, with Magnolia.

_Fahrenheit._

He wasn't sure if he wanted to hug her for being so sweet, or use it as blackmail material for the next fifty years, because he could dine out on that one for fucking ages.

Charlie hadn't moved in about twenty seconds, but Magnolia's careful laugh managed to clear the air. "We're just having some harmless fun, aren't we, darlin'?"

"As the lady says," Pen demurred, but her tone had changed slightly and she sounded closer, as if she had moved away from Magnolia a little.

Fahrenheit grunted noncommittally and finally stomped upstairs, Ham's taunting farewell preceding Pen's quietly amused, "You're safe."

"For now," he answered immediately, and realised too late that he'd let them know that he had heard everything. Hancock emerged from behind the bar to see twin smirks. "You ladies sounded like you were havin' fun."

Magnolia's smile was secretive. "What gave us away?"

Hancock's grin was easy as he snagged a bottle of ale from the shelves. "Pen didn't give you a nickname, all her favourite people get nicknames."

Pen gave him a surprised smile, but she wiped it away when Magnolia turned to look at her expectantly. "With a name as beautiful as Magnolia, who needs nicknames?"

"Not bad," he conceded when Magnolia laughed happily.

"Not bad? I breezed through uni on those lines," Pen declared in outrage, drawing herself up in affront even though Magnolia looked confused and Hancock carried on walking towards them.

"You should've said somethin' like—" Hancock picked up Pen's hand from her thigh, his thumb stroking over her knuckles as he gave her a slow, crooked smile. "How can I think of pretty things when I have the prettiest thing sat in front of me?"

He managed to keep her gaze for a whole two breaths, and it felt like flying.

"Okay," Pen mumbled, ducking her head to hide her smile, "you're better at the words."

"It's not the words," Magnolia offered, mischief glimmering in her eyes, "it's the intent."

"Very well said," Hancock affirmed, delighted to see Pen flush further – but she still hadn't let go of his hand.

Magnolia watched for a moment before flicking her fingers at them. "Okay, shoo, you two, or everyone will be too busy watching you instead of me."

Hancock had noticed one or two people trying to listen in to their conversation – and failing when Charlie chose that moment to bustle loudly in front of them – but even so, they seemed simply interested rather than anything nefarious.

They were his people, they knew him, and of all things they seemed _pleased_.

Hancock helped Pen off of her stool and – like an absolute gentleman – let her go up the stairs before him, only earning a laugh when he just _happened_ to notice that Pen had stitched the tear in her jeans from the old bullet graze, the one between ass cheek and thigh.

"I like these jeans, it seemed a waste to throw them out."

"We have a whole storeroom of clothes, kitten; Fahrenheit won't mind if you wanna take somethin'." Pen looked as if she might take him up on that offer, but his expression twisted a little when they stepped outside. "I dunno what happened back there, didn't think Fahr'd be weird about…"

The circling gesture he made really didn't describe anything, but Pen understood anyway.

"It's not weird," Pen replied easily, not at all fazed by Fahrenheit's frostiness. "I'd have been more surprised if she hadn't reacted. She's your friend—more than that, she's your ally. She's so firmly in your camp that she might as well wave a little flag with your face on it."

Hancock grinned at the thought. "She'd rather die."

Pen gave an acknowledging nod. "My point is, it's a good thing, she cares. It means I know you're in good hands when I'm not here."

The moment to protest her departure came and went, and Hancock waved as it went by, choosing instead to raise an eyebrow and enjoy Pen's smile, chose to enjoy their time together rather than fret about wasting it.

She was worth waiting for.

"Uh huh, 'cause Fahr's _way_ safer than you?"

Pen subconsciously rewarded him by drifting closer, her arm pressing up against his as they walked the streets.

"What trouble are you going to get into here, a few papercuts or a headache? Poor baby," she teased, her lower lip sticking out in a pout he wanted to bite.

"Hey, papercuts are a bitch."

Pen made sympathetic cooing noises. "I'll kiss them better for you."

"I'll remember that," he warned warmly, but this time she met him smirk for smirk.

Slowly but surely, he was winning her over, he was sure of it.

"I don't doubt it—"

Pen cut herself off at the sound of footsteps, and they both ran into an alleyway with Kelvin hot on their heels, chest heaving and eyes panicked. "Fahr was comin' this way, think Del threw her off."

"A moment of silence for Delisle, brothers an' sisters," Hancock intoned sombrely, and Pen snickered breathlessly.

It was a good look on her. "Won't Fahrenheit just be angry at everyone now?"

"Sharin' the blame makes it easier on all of us," Hancock explained, ferreting a lighter from his pocket when Kelvin flourished some cigarettes. "I don't know why she's so pissed at me, it's not like this is the first time."

Kelvin offered one to Pen but shrugged and lit up his own when she politely declined. "I still don't get how you did it, Boss, she threatened to shoot me through the keyhole for treadin' on a creaky floorboard outside 'er room once."

Hancock took a long drag from Kelvin's cigarette and absently wondered why it made Pen smile when they passed it between them. "You get used to tryin' to be extra quiet when you ain't got ears."

Pen's laugh sounded sly, but it quickly faded into a murmured, "You aren't the only one."

Hancock turned to see Fahrenheit standing right behind him, a Fahrenheit who not only had a very pink gun, but a Fahrenheit who wasn't quite rust-orange anymore.

Hancock eyed the shock of pastel pink hair and gave himself up for lost. "I gotta be honest with you, Fahr, s'fetchin' colour on you."

Fahrenheit had him on the floor and in a headlock in three seconds, Pen saved the cigarette before he could drop it and simply laughed at him.

 

* * *

 

Pen thought that everything might hurt.

Her eyes hurt, her feet hurt, her back hurt, her throat hurt, but she could honestly say she hadn't had this much fun in her entire life – before or after the war.

The two days she had spent in Goodneighbor had been _healing,_ for want of a better word. She had shown up a little fractured, a little worried, and now she was fine, wonderful.

Happy.

Happier than she had been for a long, long time – two hundred years on ice not included.

Part of the pain was an ache where she had fallen asleep oddly, face cushioned by her arms on the bar in Third Rail, Daisy cackling at how much of a lightweight she was and Charlie carefully taking her glass from her numb fingers.

Pen didn't remember the last time she had fallen asleep surrounded by people she trusted.

She had woken up sometime later in one of the rooms off the bar, MacCready's by the haphazard state of it and the guns she found in various places – who hid their spare ammo in _shoes?_

Under a blanket that smelled of printer ink and sugar bombs, she had sleepily watched MacCready and Hancock continue drinking on the sofa, talking quietly about past adventures, laughing at near-misses and arrogantly comparing scars – Hancock won by a mile.

She had fallen asleep again to the sound of Hancock promising something, she couldn't hear what, but she felt them glancing at her as she drifted off and dreamed of jet-grey eyes aglow with laughter.

Hancock in his element was…

 _Stunning_ was the only word she could think of.

It was stunning to see him relax amidst his people, to see him order rounds for the room and laugh low and throaty when Charlie threatened to bar him for not paying his tab. It was stunning to see him joke with his so-called guards, to see them share smokes like kids on the playground, men and women who respected him, who stood by him – even when Fahrenheit was out for blood.

Fahrenheit, who might give Pen wary looks for flirting with Magnolia but had still said something to Hancock about her, something that had made him able to joke about her leaving again, joke about _please take MacCready with you,_ and the inevitable, _screw you!_

Pen didn't begrudge Fahrenheit her attitude, she had hated nearly all of her brother's girlfriends.

Not that it was in _any way_ similar to what was going on with her and Hancock, because they weren't, it wasn't, it was just—

"Hey," Hancock murmured, smile effortless and eyes warm, and fuck, Pen felt her heart lift at the sight of him, felt her mouth curve at the sound of him, and knew she was a goner. "I finished the stock check if you wanna head back to Third Rail."

Pen tilted her head and teased, "You mean you finished your chores?"

Hancock chuckled, and the sound made her spine tingle pleasantly. "Yeah, my chores. Can't believe Fahrenheit let me get away with it that easy, to be honest."

"I don't think you have," she replied in a stage-whisper, and ended up against his side as he locked the warehouse door.

It hit her too late that, when he turned, she was between him and the wall, between a rock and a warm place, between _keep it cool_ and _maybe just one kiss._

Fuck.

"You think she's got somethin' planned?" Hancock asked, the barest of rough edges entering his voice, and it was probably her fault, because she always forgot how to breathe when he was this close, close enough to touch, close enough to kiss.

_Fuck._

It was totally her that leaned forwards, it so was and they both knew it, even if it was this completely involuntary little sway that almost brought her up onto her tiptoes, but not quite enough to close the gap between them, a bare inch that felt as if it crackled against her lips.

Hancock's arm braced beside hers, but it was on the door side, not the open side, leaving her free to escape.

If only she bloody wanted to.

Hancock's mouth parted slightly in an amused smirk, one brow raised high as if he could taste her even over the distance. "I thought we were takin' this one day at a time?"

_Clever ghoul._

Pen floundered, she flushed, and she failed at keeping it cool _and_ just the one kiss, instead she was feverish and completely sans smoky-sweet skin against hers. "No, I mean, yes, we are."

That brow rose to stratospheric levels and Pen mentally cursed herself, because seriously, how did he keep doing this to her?

She'd had a whole plan when she brought him back to Sanctuary, planned to take it slow, to enjoy flirting with something other than death for a while, and then he had woken up and called her _kitten_ and everything had gone to pot, just as it always did when he called her it, when he spoke, when he looked at her.

It was supposed to be easier these days, time was where she would have asked someone out for a drink, dinner, catch a film, and the worst thing that could happen was a duff date or zero chemistry.

Here, now, 200 years after a nuclear war, the chemistry wasn't in question, but the biology was a different kettle of fish.

She wasn't just flirting with death, she was falling a little bit in love with it, and he wore a red duster.

Hancock could have stopped her, he didn't have to let her lean in, didn't have to smile roguishly and smell like spent shells and Mentats and fucking _happiness._

Not only that, but she knew he loved it when she slipped up, when she touched more than she needed to. He'd raise an eyebrow just to let her know that he knew what was going on, and then he'd grin when she blushed.

She was starting to hate how much she loved that grin.

Hancock grinned now, gaze tracing her pink cheeks, and then he brushed one with the back of a finger. "When're you headin' back to Sanctuary?"

"I don't know," she replied quietly, and it was more about her mental state than anything else.

"Good," was all he could say, because it was, he loved her being here, but he wasn't going to force her into staying.

Goodneighbor had to be the safe place, the place she came to when the Minutemen were stressing her out, when she was bruised and bleeding, because he would always be here to make her laugh, to stitch her up and kiss the papercuts.

Fahrenheit had said as much – although she had likened Pen to a particularly flighty deathclaw and earned a pink dye-job to show for it.

Pen had waited 200 years, he could stand to wait for as long as she needed him to – and if he noticed that she touched him more often and her eyes glimmered whenever he flirted with her, that was simply a sign he was doing the right thing.

Besides, it was his favourite game to catch her out.

"I need a drink," she said plainly, and when he would have let her go with a chuckle, she added softly, "Have one with me?"

Hancock paused, musing over the request when he had joined her at Third Rail dozens of times since she had arrived, but he sensed there was something quite poignant to the quiet question.

So he responded in kind.

"Any time, kitten."

A tentative smile shone at the edges of her lips, and then she tangled their fingers together. "It's a date."

_Fuck._

Slammed onto the back foot, surprise made him blurt stupidly, "A date?"

Pen mimicked his cocky look, the one he gave when he caught her out, but there was nervousness there, and Hancock felt it like butterflies or irradiated leaves in his own stomach.

The word _date_ flittered dizzily through his thoughts, and he wondered why the tables had suddenly turned, why waiting seemed a sight fucking better than traversing this potential minefield, because flirting, fuck, that was harmless, that was fun.

He wasn't a _date_ kinda guy, not unless it involved one with a chems dealer.

What was he supposed to do, find some candles? No, they always used candles, that was normal. Slaughter an animal? No, that was for something else – and, again, normal.

Fuck, he needed a guide book or something, or maybe some Jet, that would work too.

"I'm kidding," she murmured reassuringly, and stepped away to pull him with her. "This isn't a fucking regency romance novel, remember?"

Hancock ran his other hand over the back of his neck and muttered, "Yeah."

Pen slid him an odd look, her fingers curled uncomfortably within his. "We don't have to—"

"No," he interrupted, and tried a smile that didn't look quite as scared shitless as he felt. "I want to."

Pen's expression clearly said, _yeah, you look it_ , but it wasn't the drink he had a problem with, it was pushing and pushing for something he wanted, and when it finally gave an inch, he overbalanced.

"I do, I just…" Hancock trailed off, and didn't know how to explain that he had no fucking clue what he was doing. "I have no fucking clue what I'm doing."

Pen took a second before she laughed, and then everything seemed normal again, her hand squeezing his. "Neither do I," she quoted happily. "It's about surviving one more day."

Hancock grinned at hearing his own words in her mouth, and wondered whether he'd survive one _date_ , let alone a day. "Never thought I'd be the one sayin' it."

"I'll go easy on you," she teased as they descended into the comfortable gloom of Third Rail. "I'll even split the bill."

Their drinks were already on the bar by the time they reached it, and Hancock had to laugh. "When has Charlie ever made you pay?"

"I always pay! It's my penance for drinking at weird hours."

"It's a weird world, who has time to wait for happy hour?"

Pen tilted her drink at him with a satisfied twinkle in her eyes. "Touché."

It was as if nothing had changed, he still flirted, she still flushed, but it took a little longer, and her smile was a little wider, and when nobody was looking he would lay his hand on hers where it sat on the bar and it felt a little _secretive._

It was fun – not that candles and slaughter wasn't fun too, but there was time for that later.

This was just them, making time for things that didn't happen naturally anymore, and when he kicked Newton in the shin for calling them lovebirds, Pen gave him a happy little _tweet tweet._

That molten silver was back in her eyes, and it was just as beautiful as the gunmetal, but it was different, because this was for him.

Fahrenheit took one look at them and about-turned on the stairs, making retching noises all the way, but Hancock was too busy trying to decide if hubflowers were the same colour as Pen's eyes.

Pen was halfway through telling a story, her groan exhausted. "Getting anywhere was a hassle even back then, but that was just long flights or sitting next to a stranger that wanted to _chat._ Now my big issue is fucking _walking_ everywhere or running into a pack of synths."

Hancock frowned for the first time in their conversation. "Synths?"

Pen nodded, a dramatic shiver trickling down her spine even as her foot nudged playfully against his.

"Preston and I ran into a couple on a scouting run out of Concord. Creepy bastards gave me this," she murmured, fingertips brushing the scar down her left cheek, the one he had admired since he had met her. "Still, they're not as bad as the ones that are supposed to _look_ human, that's some serious uncanny-valley shit right there."

Hancock felt something terrible open up in his gut. "What d'you mean?"

"Well, they're monsters."

Pen had never seen Hancock look disappointed before.

 

* * *

 

Hancock was going to have to eat his tricorne.

Of-fucking- _course_ Pen was too good to be true, because nobody looked and sounded and _felt_ like she did without having some major fucked up flaw, right?

It wasn't the cryo, she'd dealt with that fine, it wasn't even the one-day-at-a-time thing, because fuck, he got it, he totally got that, because he was terrified of messing this up and the more care he took the better, so he kinda _liked_ it, liked the whole soft-and-slow thing – when she wasn't looking at him with those dancing blue eyes of an evening, anyway.

No, Pen's flaw had to be fucking _racism,_ and not even against ghouls – because her opinion of him was pretty damn obvious by now when those dancing blue eyes always followed that soft hand on his chest.

Synths, the one thing that would tear Goodneighbor apart if any of them really knew what was going on behind the Memory Den's doors.

_Monsters._

He fucking hated that word.

"What makes you call 'em that?"

He was aiming for neutral, but judging from the way Pen curled in on herself slightly, her foot no longer nudging his, he hadn't done very well.

For the first time since he'd known her, Pen shut down on him a little, her reply a careful, "I don't know."

Hancock chewed on the inside of his cheek and decided to give her the benefit of the doubt – because he had to, he was in too fucking deep as it was, he wanted to believe she was misinformed, because being in cryo didn't just fuck a person's relationships with people, it fucked with technology too.

Suddenly her slight apprehension around Kleo made sense, sentience was scary when the most high-tech thing someone used to have in their house was a fucking toaster with arms.

Hancock ordered them both another drink, Charlie making her smile slightly with some phrase he didn't understand.

"Gotta look after the pennies, eh, miss?"

"I guess that makes me a pound then," she replied quietly, and despite everything, he didn't want her to draw away from him, so he leaned his knee against hers.

"Is it 'cause they're like robots?"

"No," she shook her head dismissively, as if that was a close-minded view, "it's because they're built to be murder machines and they're told to act it, they don't know any better, and that's terrifying."

Hancock weighed his head to the side, wondering if she knew how right she was – about most of them, anyway, until the Railroad got their hands on them and set them _free._

"Then why kill 'em?"

Pen frowned, fingers clasping around her glass. "Why kill anyone? Gunners think they're superior, mutants too, should we not kill them, either? Synths are just another thing trying to kill me and it's a dog-eat-dog world."

It was his turn to frown, because of course dogs ate dogs, dogs ate everything, dogs had eaten a pack of Mentats he'd left out one night – they were scary enough as it was without them foaming at the mouth and probably doing calculus.

"What about Nick?"

Pen blinked in surprise, her mouth opening twice before twisting wryly. "I sound like everyone else but, _he's not like the others._ "

Hancock huffed a laugh, one that wasn't as easy as it had been five minutes ago. "Yeah, he gets that a lot."

"He _is_ different though," Pen said adamantly, "I've heard the stories, I heard about Broken Mask, the fear of some modern changeling sneaking in to swap out loved ones. I've walked down an empty street and seen some plastic thing masquerading as a human, I saw it turn, and I saw it shoot me; I saw it look me dead in the eye as it left its mark on my cheek and it _didn't care_. Nick? He has free will, he can choose, and he chooses not to kill indiscriminately."

Pen's fingers lingered over the scar and a mixture of regret and fear flashed in her eyes, and Hancock tried to understand, tried to make _her_ understand. "You think he's the odd one out, that all the rest are… monsters?"

"I think he's the exception that proves the rule, yes," Pen said plainly, but she put her glass down all of a sudden, blue eyes narrowing at his watchful expression and the molten silver turning hard again. "I'm wrong."

Hancock really hated being put on the back foot, and Pen was really good at doing it today. "Of course Nick's a good guy—"

"Not about Nick, about synths," she said slowly, but there was confusion there, and suspicion. "You're looking at me like my brother looked at me when I asked him if he was hazed in the military."

"What did he say?"

"He said no… the bruises told me otherwise," she said carefully, so he hedged his bets and tried to throw her off of the scent.

"It's a tough life, maybe he just—"

"Don't lie to me, John."

_Ah, fuck._

Hancock grasped for words, two aborted breaths passing before he managed, "Look, you were the one who said you shouldn't judge a book by its cover."

"You can't with synths, they look like everyone else," Pen said archly, and he had to concede the point. "That's why they're terrifying, they're the wolf in sheep's clothing, but wolves don't keep going when you shoot them."

"Pickman looked like everyone else too," he offered, and she braced an angry hand on top of the bar.

"Pickman was a _man,_ a man with a weapon, he had reasons, patterns, sociopaths always do. Synths _are_ the weapon, and someone, somewhere, is firing them." The atmosphere shifted suddenly and something very _old_ crept onto her face, her sigh from a time long gone by. "All this talk of a nameless shadow, of bombs out of nowhere and spies in our midst, it's like I've gone back in time and I'm at home again… I hate it."

Hancock's eyes widened, surprised at the amount of sadness that had come from such wariness. It hurt to see her there, looking so very alone in a world she still didn't really understand, a world born of bombs.

Some things, unfortunately, never changed.

Except Hancock wouldn't let her feel quite so alone, not now, not ever again, so he brushed a finger against the delicate ones on the counter, and one lifted to brush back.

It was enough, Pen straightened a little, spine firmer and eyes clear, but her mouth still an uncomfortable line. "These stories, they're like… fearmongering before a war, it's terrorising, and you're the first person _not_ to tell me that synths are brainwashed to kill everyone."

Pen had been hanging around with the wrong people, and yet it was an eerily accurate way of putting it. "If it's a war, it's gonna be fought on more than two sides, there ain't just _good_ and _evil_ anymore."

Pen looked at him shrewdly before muttering, "Cryptic isn't a good look on you."

"Yeah, I know, s'not my strong point," he admitted, somewhat amused, but only because she had relaxed more, her body angled towards his again, forehead creased in thought and – he hoped – understanding.

"It's hard not to believe what everyone's saying," she said gradually, but he focused on that nibbled lip for more than just the impure reasons. "But if you're saying they're wrong…"

Pen trailed off, waiting for him to confirm it, and he could, he so very easily could, but he wouldn't.

"It's not my secret to tell," he replied quietly, and wanted to call her _kitten_ , but it felt as if it cheapened it when he was keeping something so huge from her.

Pen sighed, but to his surprise, she nodded. "I suppose I'm glad, in a way, it wasn't the best thing to wake up to, and yet our newspapers talked of days like these coming – but they talked of them in the hands of the enemy, a never-ending army of machines. I can't get past that, not yet, I still can't picture them as people when I'm not sure they are."

Hancock could barely believe that she trusted him so implicitly, not when even his own people were spooked by the Institute's far-reaching arms. Goodneighbor functioned because everyone in it admitted who they were, _what_ they were, and synths didn't always know.

They didn't know that they _were_ people, and he was all for them.

His expression must have said as much, because Pen shrugged. "I don't shoot first anyway."

It was all he could ask for when he had given nothing in return, really.

There was a hubbub upstairs, finally piercing their bubble of peace, and it popped entirely when MacCready breezed by to pick up another gun and steal Pen's drink.

She let him do it with a small, indulgent smile. "Where are you off to in such a hurry?"

"Bunker Hill trader's just been in," he panted, wincing at the burn of vodka, "got a contract with my name on it."

Hancock whistled as if impressed. "Are you worth more dead or alive? 'Cause I'll take the hit an' just kill you."

"You're wasted as a mayor," Pen teased, but her smile wasn't as wide anymore, something questioning lurking in its depths.

MacCready made a face at both of them. "When either of you get called on _personally_ to take out a mutant camp, you can start making jokes."

"Did you remember to pack a spare pair of pants?" Pen called loudly, and they could just about see MacCready throwing them the finger as he ran upstairs.

Their quiet laughter died when Fahrenheit appeared, her expression grave enough to bring Hancock to his feet – something not helped by the still very obvious pastel pink sheen on her head. "What is it?"

Fahrenheit wasn't one to bullshit, so the fact that it took a second for her to get the words right was enough to unnerve him. "I went through the contracts before I handed them out. Stockton's daughter's gone missing, he thinks it's kidnap."

Hancock went very still, reading something in Fahrenheit's face meant only for him. "Stockton gonna pay?"

Fahrenheit shook her head slightly, pink hair fluttering. "There's not been a ransom, just a dead caravan group missing a body."

Hancock dragged a hand over his jaw. "Did Stockton ask for—"

"Yes."

"So should I—"

"It's not my call, John."

Pen looked between them, used to their half-conversations but still unable to understand them, and Hancock was thankful for it until she spoke.

"I'll go."

Hancock nearly closed his eyes in defeat but Fahrenheit saw it before it happened, her mouth already opening to make up an excuse, a reason, _anything,_ because this happening right now felt like fucking karma.

It felt like a choice, because this contract wasn't meant for Pen.

"It's okay," he assured roughly, attention on Fahrenheit before turning to Pen. "We'll go together."

Fahrenheit's brow was furrowed. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah," he said more confidently, finding it easier when Pen gave him a pleasantly surprised smile, when her hand slipped secretly into his.

Pen had trusted him, he had to do the same, he had to trust her to make the right decisions, trust her to be more _fair_ than _feral,_ trust her not to see things quite so black and white as she had done.

He had to hope she had a favourite shade of grey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, as an aside (and for when this fic is finished) I accidentally started drafting a much shorter fic for everyone's favourite blue-eyed boy, MacCready. He normally hates other mercs, they don't have his calibre - or his style - but he gets into some shit with this Bunker Hill contract and a mystery merc with a wolfish smile helps him out (well, she watches him struggle for a bit before he admits defeat). Anyone interested?


	8. Gunmetal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgive my lateness, have 8k to make up for it? There's a few cheeky pop-culture references available too.  
> I had a little creative licence with the numbers, here. Processing power keeps towns lacking in citizens, so imagine double the amount you might see in most cases – and in Covenant's case, one or two extra buildings.

> If you're gonna dine with them cannibals  
>  Sooner or later, darling, you're gonna get eaten  
>  But I'm glad you've come around here with your animals  
>  And your heart that is bruised but unbeaten  
>  And beating like a drum
> 
> \- Nick Cave & The Bad Seed, _'Cannibal's Hymn'_

They were a few hours out of Goodneighbor, the weather had held, he had Fahrenheit's boot-print on his ass and Pen's fingers in his hand, but there was just one thing on Hancock's mind – and it wasn't about the raider guts Pen was disgustedly scraping off of her shoe.

"An' you put it in, like, a mini oven?"

"It was called a microwave, nuked your food for you."

Hancock shot a glance to his side to see Pen's face bathed in the golden glow of the setting sun. " _Nuked?_ "

Pen wiggled her other fingers dismissively, a .50cal cartridge flicking over her knuckles like a poker chip would. "Yeah, well, like a mini nuke."

Hancock had seen mini nukes, and he was fairly certain that if you threw one at some food, everything in a five-mile radius would be cooked, let alone some pasta in a packet.

"Whatever you say, kitten."

"It's true!" Pen exclaimed, squeezing his hand when he laughed, the sound relaxed and easy and making Pen smile. "I suppose I could be making it all up, bright red buses two floors high, power shortages at tea time, a monarch that ruled a whole country – or, in your case, a president."

There was a whole host of things Hancock wanted to ask about, wanted to know about Pen's life before the war, but there would be time for all of that later – they would make time, after the gun barrels were cleaned and the papercuts were kissed. "My case?"

Pen scuffed a foot against the ground indicatively. "The Wealths – or the States, as it was called before my time – all ruled by one person."

Hancock huffed a disbelieving sigh. "Fuck that, I can barely deal with the hundred-odd in Goodneighbor."

Pen nodded, smile turning weary. "It's not an easy job."

Hancock didn't like the tiredness that laced her spine, the invisible weight on her shoulders, and so he tugged her a little closer, not knowing when he had helped her over a wall only for neither of them to let go of the other.

"You're doin' it well, though."

Pen submitted to the pull, smile a little brighter when she peeked up at him. "That doesn't mean I enjoy it."

Hancock frowned, unsure how to take that. Being mayor wasn't an easy job either, and he liked to think he did it well, but _he_ enjoyed it, even with all the grumbles and complaints and the dead bodies in the streets. Occasionally he liked to roam, but he always liked going back, going _home._

Perhaps Sanctuary didn't feel like home to Pen.

"Don't do it then," he said simply, and when she raised an eyebrow, he weighed his head to the side. "Yeah, okay, it's not that easy, but you ain't _obligated_ to do anythin' now. Sanctuary can look after itself, Garvey's a big boy."

"If I thought Preston would…" Pen trailed off, leaving Hancock to wonder, but she carried on before he could ask what she'd do, what she _wanted._ "Sanctuary might be self-sufficient, but the other settlements? I can't leave them when I know they're ripe for raiding."

It was a self-sacrificing statement, one that made him want to shake Garvey by the shoulders and demand if he knew how damn lucky he had it, made him want to see if those settlements gave her the warrior's welcome she deserved, but it also made him want to take Pen back to Goodneighbor, to make it her home, with him.

And yet that protective urge he admired so much in her was exactly what would keep her going out, going roaming, going looking for trouble.

Even if she said that he was enough trouble for her, and even if he fucking loved how fondly she said it.

"So just do your wanderin' thing, you can still help without the title."

Pen sighed, her fingers curling tighter around his absent-mindedly. "I think I am, I think that's all it is now, a title."

"If that were true, you wouldn't be worryin' about it," he commented, and pulled her to a gentle stop, Pen smiling as she swung around to face him. "What do you wanna do, kitten?"

_What can I do to help?_

Pen wouldn't look at him for a moment, not until he reached up to push a strand of blonde hair away from her forehead, and with those ridiculous sunglasses safely stowed away, he was able to memorise her face all over again, his thumb trailing down the scar that reached her jaw.

Sky-blue eyes seemed to scour and soothe all at the same time, and Hancock had to wonder what they saw.

Pen breathed in, savouring the scent of Mentats and spent shells on a slightly singed breeze, delighting in the feel of calloused fingers and the sound of steady, throaty breaths, and she watched the way the sunset made jet-grey glow gold.

Pen saw Hancock, she saw a ghoul who did right by those he protected and a ghoul who sometimes did wrong and didn't make excuses for it, she saw death in a duster and triumph in a tricorne, because Hancock had seen the shit end of the stick and grasped it anyway, he had set fire to the damn thing and used it to light the way.

Pen saw a ghoul on a balcony with a flag about his waist and pride in his words and people who loved him.

So did she.

"I… Is that Covenant?"

Hancock twisted to look over his shoulder, eyes squinting against the sun to see a rectangle of black jutting out of the horizon. "Yeah, looks it."

"Why is it so squat," she murmured, continuing to peer at it even when Hancock turned back to face her.

"It's got walls, so I hear."

Pen made the mistake of looking at him again, at his proud brow lined with concern and his jaw jut to the side, and saw the same beauty she saw when she looked at the Commonwealth, ravaged and arid but strong and unyielding.

It wasn't rolling green valleys or lush sandy beaches, it wasn't even snow-capped mountains or tropical jungles but it had that same sense of danger, it was bare trees and rad storms and _surviving,_ surviving with a roguish smile and a ridiculous hat and making the best of it.

It was weathering the worst, and Pen thought it worth coming home to.

It wasn't the sort of thing she could admit on the road – let alone to herself – and so she flicked the brim of his tricorne with a finger. "Walls have never kept me out before."

In the long shadows and the short breaths, Hancock grinned. "Me either. Ready to knock 'em down?"

"You know _talking's_ an option?"

"I save all my charm for you, kitten," Hancock teased, and dropped her hand to fall behind, a comforting presence at her back. "You're better at this than I am."

Pen walked on with a scoff, relieved to have him so close by and surprised about it – she had wandered alone for a while, bar the odd skirmish with Nick or MacCready, but Hancock wasn't just another gun, another voice in the darkness, he was reassuring in a way that nobody else was.

Whether it was his hand in hers or the sly comments, the boom of his shotgun or the rattle of his Mentats, he was simply _there;_ survival in its charming, red duster-wearing entirety.

She was starting to wonder what she would do without him, and that was more than a little terrifying.

Pen curled her fingers around her pistol, felt the grooves and the scrapes; some of those marks were _hers,_ reminders that she had survived this long without a smooth-talking ghoul at her back.

She just happened to like him there.

"I'm better at talking?"

"That," Hancock answered, and she could hear him grinning even as the sun slipped past the horizon, "an' not lookin' like me. Believe it or not, kitten, some people take one look at this ugly mug an' shoot first."

Pen frowned and wanted to stop walking, wanted to turn around and say pretty things and heartfelt declarations, but a figure detached from Covenant's walls so she made one single statement, and in it was everything.

"I draw quicker."

Hancock's low, pleased laugh rumbled up her spine, enticing a smile to her lips as she stepped into the floodlights and the range of a dozen turrets.

Faced with the unknown and death on her side, Pen gave a satisfied sigh.

Survival was the spice of life, and it tasted divine.

"Well met, Covenant," Pen called, finding it absurdly appropriate to dip into Shakespeare at times like these. Of course, it earned her a snort from Hancock and confusion from the man who approached without a single gun to hand, but it made her feel better.

"Uh, well met, are you here to visit Covenant?"

A weathered face smiled at them, but coupled with the instinctive fear of things that went bump in the night – or shouted _well met_ – the smile was a touch nervous; and yet, Pen wasn't sure why, the man was dressed in jeans and a leather jacket, clothes designed to look at ease, to look capable, but then that was the way of the world.

Everybody had a façade.

Pen paused, brows raising when she took in the bright welcome sign and dull concrete walls. An instinct told her to appreciate them, to feel _reassured_ by the safety on offer, but true reassurance was a gun in her hand and another at her back.

How was it that these people fared so well against the raiders, when so many others didn't?

"It seems that way," she murmured, aiming for friendly.

"Excellent, well, if you could come over here, my name's Swanson," he replied happily, gesturing to the lean-to room that apparently served as a guard post. It was empty but for two chairs and a desk, and Pen had to wonder why a guard needed a writing desk.

At least it was that and not a raven, because she wasn't quite sure of this trip into wonderland, even if Swanson did have hair as white as snow.

Swanson made as if to step into her personal space and Hancock must have suddenly loomed behind her in that menacing way he liked to affect to strangers, because the guard quailed. "Oh, your… friend… will have to wait outside."

"My _friend_ goes where I go," Pen sniped, not thinking about what the emphasis on that word might mean until Hancock cracked a grin and lewdly repeated it. "Get out of the gutter."

It was no use trying to hide her smile, especially when Hancock murmured lowly, "S'my favourite place."

Swanson's hand strayed towards his desk, and Pen could see the hilt of something resting against the wood. Hancock tensed when she did, but Swanson simply reached for a clipboard.

"We require visitors to answer a few questions before entry," Swanson managed, gaze flicking between the two of them as he decided which was more dangerous – the girl with her hand on her gun, or a ghoul.

It was a little insulting that Hancock's _existence_ was more threatening than she was, kitted out and all.

"We could do that, _or,_ here's an idea, my gutter trash friend and I could just…" Pen made a little twiddly movement with two fingers. "Walk in."

"I don't know, kitten," Hancock drawled, his weight on one leg like a sailor home from sea – one jonesing for a fight and salt on his skin, "they've got a pretty big door."

Pen gave an exaggerated sigh, coaxing a nervous Swanson to join in with her sober nod. "You're right, I guess we'll have to take our caps elsewhere."

Swanson perked up, suddenly seeming to realise that they were playing with him. "You're traders?"

Hancock shifted the rucksack he had stolen off of Pen as if there were goods in it, and not a few grenades making friends with the water bottles. "Why, does that mean we can skip the entrance exam?"

"Not quite an eleven-plus," Pen snickered, and Swanson joined in when Hancock did, but she was fairly certain that the guard was just humouring her – he could afford to, with a handful of turrets watching their every movement.

"I'll have to talk this over with the town, please give me a moment."

"Take your time." Pen offered him a pleasant smile but still resettled the rifle on her back, just to remind him that they wouldn't be taken for fools.

Hopefully.

"Gutter trash?" Hancock asked quietly, laughing when Pen slid him a look. "I preferred rascal."

"You'll always be a rascal to me," she replied easily, and didn't know why his smile faded away.

Hancock leaned against the outer wall of the guard hut, his attention oddly fixed on the star-speckled horizon as he stood at her immediate right.

"Pen?"

She replied with a distracted hum, wondering why it felt odd to hear him use her actual name for once.

It wasn't as if she absolutely adored the nickname or anything.

"What were you gonna say, before you saw Covenant?"

It was Pen's turn to look fixedly at something, this time at a loudly ticking turret atop the wall when Hancock twisted his head slightly to look at her sideways-on.

What _had_ she been going to say?

The words had been stuck in her throat even before the sight of walls had lodged them there, but not because she didn't mean them, it was because she didn't know what they _meant_ these days.

Love was not a many-splendored thing anymore, for what was love to a ghoul adored by his people, what was love to anyone when it didn't put food on the table or keep the raiders away?

Pen had seen a lot of things since waking up on the wrong continent; she had seen families torn apart and siblings at war, she had seen children without parents even before the ice, but it was waking up in the wrong time and seeing it all again, seeing it through eyes that looked for weak points before they looked for welcome, that confirmed one thought.

This post-war world wasn't accepting of so fragile a thing as love, so _useless_ a thing, but she didn't know what else to call the butterflies in her stomach and the comfort of his hand, didn't know how else to respond when he encouraged her wandering, appreciated her aim and liked it when she snarled.

Even Nick worried when she travelled too long and Preston bitched when she was harsh on the settlers, but Hancock?

Hancock slipped some rifle ammo into a pocket and wished her good hunting.

It was a far simpler thing that wanted to be spoken, but it could be taken in so many ways and she wasn't sure which ones she meant.

_I need you._

"I don't remember."

Hancock nodded slowly, but whatever he had been about to say was overshadowed by the gate opening, Swanson returning with a man whose smile seemed a little over-friendly for two weapon-wielding strangers at the door.

"Welcome, I'm sorry to keep you out here for so long!" The man called, and Pen settled into politeness, reluctantly endeared by the whole place. "My name is Jacob Orden, I'm Covenant's mayor."

Jacob was tending to overweight, which only raised the question of where – and indeed, how – they were getting and storing enough food despite their threatening exterior. With a trilby on his head and his tie straining over the bulge of his stomach, Pen could have pegged him for a bureaucrat a mile off.

Funny how it was always the ones that looked like they could beat you or eat you that ended up in power.

Of course, these days, the two weren't mutually exclusive.

"Pen, and that's my friend," she offered, expecting Hancock to introduce himself, but all he did was give the mayor a dissatisfied once-over and muttered too quietly for anyone else to hear, _shit hat._

"Yes, Swanson said there were two of you," Jacob began, and when Pen went to insist that they were both going in – grumpy ghoul and all – the mayor seemed to read her mind. "You're both very welcome, but it's late, please, rest overnight and we can talk properly tomorrow."

Pen hesitated, attention switching to the softly lit town behind those sturdy walls. "We can find somewhere else to stay—"

"Of course not," Jacob insisted, jovial as ever. "We have room for visitors, never fear!"

Pen could only imagine what Hancock's face was like right now, because Swanson edged a little closer to that sword hilt again and something told her it had less to do with cutting up fruit and more because there was a ghoul trying to explode heads with his mind.

"Thanks," Pen settled for with a sigh. "It's been a long day, sleeping in a bed might do wonders, right now."

Apparently overjoyed, jovial Jacob led the way with huffy Hancock bringing up the rear, leaving Swanson outside and Pen almost stumbling on the threshold, finally able to see what those walls were keeping out – and what they were keeping in.

Covenant looked… _untouched,_ its panelled walls painted in pastel shades and its picket fences pristine; even the people seemed unaffected, their clothes in styles Pen remembered, the dresses clean and the shirt collars pressed.

Pen's breath came oddly, hoarse and harried, it tore at her chest in short, sharp little bursts. In this tiny little town, it was as if the bombs had never fallen, as if two-hundred-years hadn't passed, as if—as if—

"Kitten," Hancock murmured, his rough, whiskey-hewn voice serving to ground her, calloused fingers telling her that it was okay.

How strange to think that going _back_ was the scary thought now, that returning to the 9-to-5 job and the bills and that _existence_ was what had her clinging to Hancock's hand and wanting to bury her face in his neck and _breathe._

Breathe in the scent of chems and cartridges and remember that the world had begun anew.

Pen breathed, she remembered, and she whispered, "Thank you."

"Any time," Hancock replied, mouth twisting as he saw the same things she did but didn't _remember_ them. "Gotta be a mindfuck."

As always, she laughed, a tired and pathetically grateful thing, and for a moment it was as if they weren't part of a potential kidnapping, as if Pen wasn't exhausted and Hancock wasn't grouchy, and their small smiles were enough for Pen to step forward into what felt like the past.

"This way, this way," Jacob encouraged, opening a front door wide for Pen to walk through, and having to step back when Hancock pushed past after her – fortunately without the sneer which immediately appeared when Jacob cleared his throat. "If your, ah, friend would like to follow me?"

Pen was starting to really dislike that word, especially when Hancock glowered, so her reply was an acerbic one. "No, we're fine together, thank you."

Jacob started to fidget, his face turning red as he tried to get his words out – and did a shit job of it. "There's, ah, only the one…"

Pen shut the door – it seemed easier than trying to talk to him – and turned to see Hancock glaring at what was actually a nice little room. The surfaces were clean, the walls freshly painted, and the lamps didn't give off that staticky buzz that she'd been despairing of in Sanctuary.

If it wasn't for the lack of baby toys and movie posters on the walls, it might have looked like her brother's place.

Thankfully, Hancock completed the disassociation, and if it wasn't for the fact that Pen would put caps on Jacob still spluttering outside the door, she might have gone to explore with her grumpy ghoul in tow.

"What was his problem?"

Hancock kicked at the wooden frame of the double bed, arms crossed irritably again. "There's only one bed, he couldn't imagine us _both_ sleepin' in it."

Pen wasn't quite sure how to respond to that, so she simply sat on said supposedly problematic bed and started tugging her combat boots off. "Why are you acting like a bear with a thorn in his paw?"

Hancock frowned, but he pointed at the closed door when she muttered _yao guai, whatever._ "If my paw is my gut an' _this_ place is the thorn, it's 'cause I don't like bein' treated like some sort of _necessary evil,_ like they want you so they gotta put up with me."

Pen nibbled her lip, unhappy that he was unhappy, and watched him pace around the room before saying quietly, "I'm glad you're here."

Hancock looked up then, surprise opening his expression, and a hint of a sheepish smile peeked at his mouth as he unfolded his arms a little listlessly. "Yeah? Well, I guess that's all that matters."

Pen lay back on the bed, smirk almost invisible. "Try and remember that tomorrow, hm? Fahrenheit made me promise to look after you."

Hancock's heavy steps stopped suddenly, and Pen didn't bother stifling her smile, just as she hadn't when Fahrenheit had cornered her in the stock room that morning, threat palpable in every tense move.

"If he dies, you won't even know the term _'fucking apocalypse,'_ do you understand me?"

With hindsight, Pen probably shouldn't have replied as fondly as she had. "Crystal clear, Fahrenheit."

Vaguely pink eyebrows had lowered for a moment, and then furrowed further with a gruff, "Wait there a sec."

Pen _liked_ Fahrenheit, she liked her even more because of how _loyal_ she was, so she had been expecting something – she just hadn't thought that Goodneighbor's rust-turned-pink-haired shadow would be so obvious about how sweet she secretly was.

"For your rifle," Fahrenheit muttered when she reappeared, shaking the box when Pen took a second of surprise to reach for the ammo. "Watch yourself out there, all right? If only 'cause I don't want to deal with John if you get yourself shot."

Pen nodded as seriously as she could. "I'll take it under advisement."

Fahrenheit's wry smile looked completely reluctant. "Yeah, yeah, get out of here, damsel, some of us have work to do."

Pen laughed, "I'll send you a postcard."

Pen had given a small salute, the backs of her fingers tapping her forehead before flicking flippantly away, and Fahrenheit had rolled her eyes

"Fahrenheit asked you to _what?"_

"You're surprised?" Pen asked, head lifting slightly to see Hancock still standing across the room, his attention distracted from whatever he had been examining.

"Well, yeah, an' at the same time, no," Hancock trailed off in bemusement, but then he shook his head with a laugh. "MacCready made me promise somethin' similar."

It was Pen's turn to be surprised, but it melted into affection when she remembered that night she had fallen asleep in MacCready's room with the pair of them on the sofa, ever so serious for once just as she was falling asleep.

"It's nice to have friends," she commented softly, and Hancock echoed her tone.

"Yeah, even if they are a pain in the ass from time-to-time."

"That's their prerogative, I'm sure they say the same about us," Pen replied, and when she thought of how badly she teased MacCready for his on-going crush on his mystery merc, she had to add, "They definitely do."

"Fahrenheit's told me to my face," Hancock chuckled, some of the day's stress finally leeching out of his muscles, his yawn drawing a similar one from Pen.

She curled up on her side, still facing him. "Should one of us keep watch?"

After a series of locks clicking into place and deadbolts sliding home, Hancock prowled back to her, still a little on edge as he turned off the lights. "The place is locked up tight, we'll be all right."

It wasn't as if they didn't sleep with their guns to hand anyway, but knowing that Hancock had scouted the room made her feel a little safer, and they both needed the rest.

"Scoot," he ordered roughly, but when she peered at him in confusion, his smile quirked up at one corner affectionately. "I always sleep on the door side."

Too tired to argue – and a tiny bit touched – Pen shuffled across, knowing her grumble was too fond when he laughed. "Bossy."

Hancock hooked his hat on the bed post and lay on his back, hands behind his head and staring straight at the ceiling, so Pen asked quietly, "What do you think's going on here?"

His reply came from the dark, her eyes not adjusted yet, and hearing it made her shiver, the sound like loose stones in a river bed, smooth but clattering and washing entirely over her. "Don't let my opinion sway you, kitten."

"But your opinion's important to me," she answered honestly, smile sleepy, "like you."

Hancock's laugh was quiet but pleased. "You're just butterin' me up, and it's workin'."

"I think I prefer ghoul _a la mode_ ," she murmured, too tired to filter.

"What's that?"

"Ice cream."

Hancock made a noise that her awake brain would have interpreted as _very_ interested, but as it was she was halfway to asleep already, the train having left the station the second her head touched the pillow.

It derailed at a scuff of noise outside.

Hancock had already sat up, jet-grey eyes glinting in a scant shaft of moonlight and his attention on the far door even as his hand came down reassuringly on her thigh.

"I'll keep watch."

Before he could stand, she laid her palm on his arm, not sure whether she was trying to get his attention or trying to keep him nearby. "Wake me when it's my turn."

Hancock paused, his fingers reaching up to brush her jaw before he settled back on the bed, back against the headboard; close, safe. "Sure thing, kitten."

Pen curled up against his side and knew he wouldn't.

 

* * *

 

Hancock remembered why he hated going roaming.

It wasn't the sand – coarse, rough, irritating, and gets everywhere – or even the blood – wet, red, thrilling, and gets everywhere. It was the _people,_ the people who tensed when they saw him, whose hands drifted to their weapons or feet that took a step back.

Okay, it was nice having a growl that inspired fear in the hearts of men, and yes, it was pretty cool being the scariest thing in a mile radius, but sometimes it really fucking wasn't.

In Goodneighbor, newcomers had already heard about him when they arrived, they knew about him, and most of them were too in the shit to do anything other than introduce themselves respectfully or scuttle off into the night. In Goodneighbor, he had friends and family, coworkers and allies, in Goodneighbor he was king.

Out here?

Out here he was just a ghoul.

"I don't air my business with strange folk," one woman said, voice edging on hysterical as she nervously looked at Hancock standing way back off of the porch.

"We don't _have_ trouble in Covenant, unlike some places," another sneered, this one deliberately meeting his gaze – even if she did look away as soon as his lip twitched into a snarl.

"Only thing awry here is our lemonade prices," the town's robot chirruped, the only one who didn't give Hancock the stink eye. "They're so cheap, you'll think we're just giving them away!"

"Are you?" Pen asked, and when she received an awkward negative, muttered, "I miss Charlie."

"I miss drinkin'," Hancock replied, hand dipping into his pocket for the fifth time in an hour. "I'll sit this one out, all right, kitten? You'll get more done without me over your shoulder anyway."

Pen's mouth twisted in distaste, but they both knew it was true. Covenant was keeping shtum, and the pair of them needed answers.

"I like you there, though."

Hancock smiled even as he pulled out an inhaler, eyebrow lofty as he headed back to their rented room. "I'll come back when you find some ice cream."

Pen's flush was its own kind of high, and it only got better when he was behind four walls with the taste of gunmetal in his mouth. The huff was shit, had been since Pen offed Marowski; the guy might have been an asshole who cut the goods, but at least they _were_ good. They were going to need another dealer soon, and fast, Goodneighbor was known for its chem trade, and Hancock was known for his chem tastes.

If all went well here then maybe Stockton could convince Cricket to loop in on her run, the Bunker Hill trade had been dry since Kessler lost all faith in the Minutemen. Maybe now, with a rescue under their belt and Pen wearing it, the mayors could renegotiate.

He didn't fucking care, he just needed something to get him off his face in the downtime between Pen's visits.

Time felt too fragile at the moment, as if it was slipping through his fingers, and not just because they were on a case with no fucking leads, but because it was a case with Pen, and cases had to end, and a part of him didn't want it to.

He had stayed awake all night just to savour it, savour _her_ , the feel of a leg hooked over his and a cheek nestled against his chest, choosing not to wake her when she slept so peacefully.

Pen had looked at the daylight leaking in through the high windows but she had just given him a knowing look and a sleepy _good morning, rascal._ He had gotten away with it this time, but he knew she'd threaten to shoot him if he kept coddling her.

He quite liked it when she threatened him, actually, so it wasn't a bad idea on the whole.

In his defence, he didn't need much sleep these days, and even less when Pen was around. He might have come to terms with her coming and going, but he was still going to make the most of every second.

They were survivors, but there was a lot of shit out there to survive, and Pen played with most of it on a day-to-day basis. Here though, Covenant, something about it didn't sit right in his gut, they were too _pretty,_ and not like Sanctuary's pretty where they swept the streets and pretended everything was hunky-dory despite the nuclear fallout, Covenant acted like there _wasn't_ any fallout, at all.

The only thing with pretending was that eventually it came back to bite you on the ass, and he felt like Covenant's time was coming. It felt like they were standing on a volcano that might blow at any minute, and he had a horrible feeling this kidnapping was going to start it off.

Hancock could swear he felt it rumbling, and it took a second to realise that it was someone knocking on the door, fast, determined raps of soft knuckles slowly hardening.

"Kitten." The pet name left him on a slur, panic thumping through the slow swirls of Jet in his system, his duster cleaving through the smoke.

Shit, how long had he been here for? That Jet was worse than he thought, it was practically a sedative – and not the good kind, but the one that gave you anxiety and wondered if that lamp shade had just grown teeth.

Hancock dragged the door open and braced for the beating Fahrenheit would have given him.

Slim fingers twined with his and Pen pulled him close, glancing over her shoulder before whispering, "You were right, there's something fishy going on here."

Baffled at the lack of confrontation, he simply asked, "Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine, I did some digging, found the missing caravan two minutes from here—"

"You went outside?!"

"I knocked but you didn't answer," Pen answered, but it wasn't said with the disappointment he had been expecting, the disappointment he deserved. "I found some lemonade on one of the guards, so they definitely stopped by, and yet nobody will admit it."

Hancock didn't quite get why Pen wasn't pissed at him, but even he had to frown at that. "Shit."

"Exactly, but do you know what the weirdest thing was? Not one person mentioned synths," Pen commented, brow furrowed as she thought and missing Hancock's flinch. "Normally it's one of the first things people talk about, but this lot? Nothing."

"I mean, I get it," she continued blithely on, "they're fucking freaky, and I'd have that many turrets to shoot 'em down if they attacked too, but it was only when _I_ brought them up that people started hating on them."

Hancock really wanted to address that first part, but there were more important things at hand and he was starting to worry about the hours he had wasted, about the life that might be depending on him. "They sound like they'd shoot synths on sight?"

"Definitely, I got the opinion that they've all had some sort of trauma at the hands of a synth and, understandably, it's fucked them up a little."

Hancock replied a little too angrily if Pen's surprise was any indication. "If a dog bites your hand do you put it down?"

"No, but then dogs can learn," she muttered, and Hancock hated how easily she had fallen into the same trap as everyone else.

Then again, he could have shown her the markings, shown her how to avoid it like a snare in the grass, but he hadn't, and it was hard to believe what you hadn't seen.

Sometimes, loyalty was an absolute bitch.

"How do you know synths can't?" Hancock asked quietly, and wanted to kiss the little furrow of consideration that appeared on Pen's brow.

She just had to think it through, she just had to trust him. She was feral and she was fair but he needed fair today, he needed her to leave all preconceived notions at the door, and he needed her to do it without him actually asking her to.

He deserved a kick up the ass after all this, but all Pen did was lean closer again.

"I don't suppose you know any other languages?"

"Uh, no?"

" _C'est malheureux, vaurien,"_ Pen murmured, completely missing the way Hancock blinked when those weird, wonderful sounding words went straight to places all impure thoughts go. "I think our hosts are listening to us."

"People are always listenin', kitten," he answered automatically, before asking rather forcefully, "Were those actual words?"

"Hm? Oh, it's French, standard curriculum in my day and now look," she forced a dramatic sigh, high on the thrill of a mission. "I'm a polyglot in a monosyllabic world – and they called Latin a dead language."

"I have no fuckin' clue what you just said," Hancock admitted, "both times, even the one I think was in English."

Pen shot him a look at that last word, her laugh a surprised thing for some reason, but it faded when a woman in a lab coat started watching them from across the way.

"I heard a few shifty things about a compound across the water," Pen murmured, almost too quiet for him to hear. "My money's on the shady shit being in there, Amelia must be too."

It was the work of seconds to grab their things and get out of there, Hancock pretending not to notice the lockpicks she slid into her backpack.

Who the fuck had taught her that?

He would put caps on MacCready, that little shit.

Hancock was glad to leave Covenant, already tired of their picket fences and the perfect lives, it was all a fucking ruse, it had to be. The quiet ones were always the worst, just look at Pen. Sweet and pale on the outside, feral and bloody on the inside. If anyone was going to figure these guys out, it was her.

He just hoped they both came out whole after this, and not just physically.

That volcano was still rumbling, and it looked as if the citizens could feel the burn when they cast them panicked looks and Swanson called out a confused farewell as they scarpered.

"This is about synths, isn't it?" Pen asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence as they walked around the large lake opposite Covenant, and the miserable look on his face must have answered her. "I won't ask you to tell me, I respect your confidences, but, please, I need something. All I've seen are plastic shells with metal hearts, I don't know where to go from there."

He didn't know what to tell her, what he _could_ tell her, so he simply held her hand. "Books and covers, kitten. We all start out a blank slate, it's life that marks us."

Pen went to ask something else, and he knew he wouldn't be able to answer it, but she stopped, her nod a small, difficult thing. "Okay."

Hancock squeezed her fingers in lame apology, and then they both looked over the lake, some sort of water purification site on its banks if the pipes snaking into the darkness were anything to go by. They had done this enough times, he knew the game-plan, sneak in and then it was all guns blazing.

It didn't feel as good as it usually did, trepidation looming like the dark water at their feet.

"Time to earn some more marks," Pen offered, her smile seeming sad.

"I think we're gonna come outta here better than a lot of others have," he answered, and when she set off ahead of him, added under his breath, "I hope."

Pen complained quietly the whole time they were in the water, and Hancock had to admit that it was a good place to put a secret base if it put her off so much. Bags of blood and heads on spikes were no problem, but a bit of water making your socks wet and Pen bailed.

He was wringing the ends of his belt when a patrolling guard nearly tripped over his own feet at the sight of them, and the welcome committee didn't take long after that.

"This was a good plan," he muttered out of the side of his mouth when half a dozen barrels bristled from all corners of the room, the uniforms neat and sturdy but the guns so suspiciously clean they looked unused.

This was no simple operation, but he could guess they didn't see much trouble down here.

"Remember the rules, you look pretty, I talk," she whispered back, a brief flash of a genuine smile before the fake one kicked in.

But damn, Pen could talk.

They didn't want violence – apparently – and they didn't want retribution for the water-walk – apparently – but they did want—

"Amelia," Pen supplied, smile swept and stare steady.

"This is a rescue?" The guard asked, relaxing so quickly that Hancock had half a mind to beat him anyway. Goodneighbor would never let their guard down so soon – and _certainly_ not if someone like Pen showed up. They were used to the gangsters, the raiders, the mouthy mercs, it was the ones that _didn't_ show off you had to watch, because they already knew they could take you.

"I hope not," Pen answered dryly, "a rescue implies she's in danger, this is simply a chauffeur service."

Hancock refused to smile, his look simply saying, _really, jokes at a time like this?_

Pen shrug replied, _if you can't joke when there's a kidnapping, a mystery, a fuck ton of guns, and a handsome ghoul at your side, when can you?_

At least, he thought it was that.

"You'd better come with us," the guard finally said, his whispered conversation in his radio ending abruptly.

"That's not ominous," Hancock remarked, and received an elbow in the ribs for his efforts.

The compound was too well armed to be anything other than dangerous, the hallways winding and the ceilings low, turrets on walls and locked doors in shadowed corners. Every turn they were led down only made Hancock more uncomfortable, and every guard that exclaimed at their passing only made Pen scowl harder.

He should have known there'd be a fucking scientist at the end of it all, a scientist who stood in a large stone room filled with medical equipment, and a balcony around the rim that he couldn't quite see up to. The lights were sterile bright but the floor was mostly dirt, more like a haphazard holding cell than a water purification centre.

As the guard's footsteps retreated and the room returned to a practiced sort of silence, Pen made a strange noise with her teeth. "What's up, doc?"

The doctor didn't even blink – not that anyone would know what with the heavy duty eye gear she was wearing, as if she worked with a flamethrower on occasion – and simply crossed her arms, clean white medical coat bunching around her thin frame. "I suppose it will come as a surprise to you to know that _Amelia_ is a synth."

The room skipped a beat, and Hancock could have just shot himself in the foot.

Synths, it had to be synths.

Pen, to her credit, kept her cool, but Hancock had a feeling it was because she thought the doctor was a nutjob rather than any sudden 180s on synths. "I'm surprised; Hancock, you surprised?"

"Shocked," he answered neutrally, as he was expected to.

"We're surprised," Pen said, turning her attention back to the doctor even as Hancock looked about for possible exits. "Can we have her then?"

Pen's blasé attitude finally seemed to throw the strangely calm woman. "I don't think you understand; this place you have disturbed is a lab, a place for experiments, research, safety. We have devised a test that proves whether or not someone is a synth."

Hancock wheeled around in shock, but Pen simply raised a brow. "The SAFE test? I saw it in Covenant."

"The very same," the doctor answered, careful to keep a good few metres between them, the ramp to the balcony at her back. "You saw the citizens of that town, that refuge; you saw them tired, scared, alone, and all because of a monster who won't show its true face."

Hancock sneered, his palms itching for his shotgun, but he looked to Pen to lead the fight.

What he saw made him want to lead the retreat.

"I did see them," Pen replied softly, finger on the scar down her cheek as if it were a trigger, and it would set off the volcano. "I've _seen_ them, everywhere I go. They're the first thing people talk about, and the last thing some people see."

"You understand," the doctor sighed in satisfaction. "Soon Covenant won't be able to house all who are affected by synths, so instead we will eliminate the problem, and in turn heal those who have been hurt by them."

"It's certainly _an_ answer, genocide – but I've heard stories about that before," Pen answered far too easily, that same sense of _history_ clinging to her words, just as he tried to cling to her fairness.

"Pen," he tried desperately, "you can't believe that. What about Nick, think about how he'd _feel._ "

Pen was already nodding as if to agree with him, but at that last word, at what he was trying so very hard _not to tell her,_ she frowned.

"You're _friends_ with one of those things?" The doctor sneered, and clenched a fist like some sort of cliché audiobook bad guy. "Don't you see? They could be all around us and we would never know without this test, we _need_ to study it further."

Pen's brow cleared all of a sudden, as if she finally understood something, and Hancock didn't know what to do, what to say, how to _feel,_ except sick.

"We would never know," Pen repeated quietly, gaze shrewd as she stared at a woman hiding behind goggles. "I'm all for science, but why do you _need_ to know? The earlier versions are obvious, but they're obvious in their intent, too, they're killing machines. The later ones, I was… I was told that some of them can make choices."

The doctor scoffed dismissively. "Choose _when_ to kill you, perhaps, not _if._ They are made killers."

Pen's fingers traced her 10mm as if by instinct. "But isn't that the same as everyone? I could choose to kill everyone in here right now."

It was the same argument she had used with him about Pickman, and Hancock wasn't sure what to take from that, except that he wasn't opposed to a bit of mass murder right now.

The doctor gestured above her at the balcony's edge, but they were too far down to see what it was she was indicating. "Synths lack _feeling,_ they can't feel sympathy or pain, and the ones that escape the Institute are no different. They _all_ need to die."

Hancock focused very, very carefully on the unassuming doctor, he focused right where she kept her weight on her right knee, right where he would shoot.

He had killed for the cause before, he wouldn't hesitate to do so again.

Pen's eyes had widened, her fingers curling in on themselves as she mouthed the word _escape,_ and her eyelids fluttered closed in something like defeat. "How do you know the test works?"

"Pretty sure they ain't just admitting it an' shakin' the doc's hand afterwards," Hancock muttered, his sneer going ignored just as it always was when they faced psychopaths, because Pen, she was the muse, she was the answer.

He really fucking hoped it was the right one.

A keen light lit the doctor's face, that hunger for knowledge making her take a step towards Pen until Hancock did the same and stopped her in her tracks.

"You've never killed one before, have you?"

"I don't know," Pen answered haltingly, and seemed to say the next as if disappointed in herself. "The new ones look the same."

The doctor's smile was a twist of lips, teeth bared and utterly insane. "You haven't looked close enough."

Pen hesitated, concern brewing on her brow. "What do you mean?"

"You say that you are for science? Well, science demands sacrifices, we need control groups just as we need results, but nothing is wasted, everything is recorded," the doctor explained so very easily, and clicked a button on the closest terminal.

There was a faint crackling, louder and louder until someone cleared their throat, and then it stopped.

"I will ask the question again: Congratulations! You made the baseball team! Which position do you prefer?"

The scratching sound came again, and Hancock realised it was sobbing, the sobs torn from a throat that had shrieked for far too long. "Catcher, catcher."

"Why?"

"I _remember,_ I remember baseball, I swear it, I played it in Diamond City as a kid, please don't hurt me again—!"

Static screamed down the speakers, and then it turned human in origin, and Pen's hand went to her mouth.

Hancock's arm bent back over his shoulder for his shotgun, prepared to shoot their way out, and froze when he saw the first filing cabinet, its lower drawer open and full of tapes.

It crashed when he pushed it with both hands, and like dominoes, the drawers fell and out of them spilled hundreds upon hundreds of tapes, twins to the dozen cabinets dotted around the stone room.

"Oh, God," Pen breathed without even realising she had uttered something long since last spoken, long since last believed in, and then she ran past the doctor, fingers scrabbling in the dirt as she climbed the ramp to the balcony with Hancock close behind her, the doctor simply watching them with odd neutrality.

Pen stopped at the top, head craned to look around, and when she backed up against his chest – warmth and steadiness and _surviving_ –he looked up and saw it too.

Pen had paled, some religious litany leaving her lips, but Hancock went for simple.

"Oh, _fuck._ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, I worked some French in – it's not my fault, I've been writing Musketeers again, blame the boys. The cliffhanger... well, yes, that's all me, whoops.
> 
> I'm curious, however, were your opinions on synths like Pen's, or were you an avid defender from the beginning?


	9. Coal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I need a watch, or a calendar, or a sundial. In my defence, I was in the hospital for a while so writing had to take a back-burner, but I hope 5k will make it up to you.

> There's bound to be a ghost at the back of your closet,  
>  no matter where you live.  
>  There'll always be a few things, maybe several things,  
>  that you're going to find really difficult to forgive.
> 
> There's gonna come a day when you'll feel better,  
>  and you'll rise up free and easy on that day  
>  and float from branch to branch, lighter than the air,  
>  just when that day is coming, who can say, who can say.
> 
> Our mother has been absent ever since we founded Rome,  
>  but there's gonna be a party when the wolf comes home.
> 
> \- The Mountain Goats, _'Up the Wolves'_

Dulled metal didn't gleam, rust didn't wink, and dirty bars and bloody walls didn't shine. They cried, they whimpered, they screamed.

Hancock could _hear_ it.

Pen's hand reached out for a cell, her feet moving closer of their own accord as if needing to see but not wanting to. Before he could pull her back, something crackled beyond the bars, a burst of electricity casting sparks over a skeleton, and Pen's fingers curled back over her mouth, her body curling back against his.

It wasn't just any skeleton.

Amidst the yellowed bone and dried blood, flashes of grey stood out like a patchwork quilt; strips of plastic stuck to limbs and a square of something dug right into the skull.

The bones looked disturbed, as if they had been examined and carelessly thrown together again, the work of a scientist who wanted only results. There was no _life_ there, no safety; only death, and desire, and destruction.

Pen trembled against his chest, the flashes of a Tesla trap throwing light onto wide eyes that stared at fingernail grooves an arm's reach through the door, eyes that stared at synth components, and Hancock didn't know what to do.

Pen turned, her gaze roving over the dozen cells, over the hundred handprints and the thousand bloodstains, and finally over him. It was the gaze of someone who looked as if they _realised_ something, realised that the world had not truly changed after all that ice and gunfire, realised that history simply repeated itself, and this time the nukes were hand-held.

The lightning crackled again, but this time it lit Pen from behind, throwing her face into shadow and her eyes into darkness, and Hancock thought he had lost her to mindless fear.

A broken breath shuddered into the noisome silence, and then Pen moved, she _stalked,_ stalked into the light of a lone hanging bulb outside a cell, and placed her fingers in the death throes of someone long gone.

"You murdered them," Pen said, voice strangely flat, lacking the quaver he had been expecting of bottomless eyes that looked as if they had seen into the pits of hell once before.

The doctor hadn't moved from her position at the bottom of the ramp, carefully stood between them and the only way out. "Have you done any less?"

Pen whirled, teeth bared and fists curled, and Hancock, with a breath that felt as if it punched him, realised that she wasn't frightened at all.

She was furious.

" _I_ did not torture them, I did not condone causing someone _pain_ just for what you think they might be!" Pen snarled, and Hancock thought he might pass out in relief, thought he might call upon whatever deity she had prayed to and give them a thumbs up.

There was the fairness, there was the Pen who had thought a serial killer worth saving and a rabid puppy worth putting down. This was the shade of grey he had wanted, he had _needed,_ because he would have just killed everyone in here for harming one hair on a synth's head.

Pen clasped her pistol, and Hancock raised a brow.

Fair, and very fucking feral.

The doctor simply shrugged, oblivious to the rage Hancock could see in every tightened muscle, the fine tuning with a ragged edge. "We needed to be able to identify them, _study_ them, this was the only way."

Pen gestured at another cell, this one thankfully empty but for the lines scrawled on the walls. "Through _suffering?_ This is— it's barbaric. It's fucking medieval!"

"It works."

"Does it?" Pen exclaimed in high, peaky disbelief. "Or are you so desperate to give a name to your fear that you're applying logic where there is none, applying _torment_ in some sort of fucked up reparation?"

"You're gonna pay for all the pain you've caused," Hancock promised, but his growled threat didn't even garner a look. As always, it was Pen who held the balance, Pen who stood on the knife edge and wielded it when she chose.

Pen was the muse.

"We're so close," the doctor replied, voice an eager whisper. "So we fail sometimes, the humans I'm sorry for, when we take them apart and see that they aren't—"

"You are _not_ sorry," Pen interrupted disgustedly. "What you've done here? You are just as bad as you make them out to be. How literally did you take _it's what's on the inside that counts?_ You can't _do_ this to people!"

The doctor scoffed, "The Institute doesn't _make_ people."

"No," Pen agreed, a very slight wobble to her angry sigh. "But life does, it marks us. Life gives us experiences, memories, relationships, _learning._ We learn, we learn that we don't know enough and we might make mistakes, we learn that rascals can be heroes and—" Pen cut herself off to shake her head, blue eyes opening with that gunmetal gleam. "We learn that humans can be the biggest monsters of all."

Hancock's grin was shit-eating and he didn't even care.

Pen was beautiful.

The doctor squawked in outrage. "Monsters? You term _us_ monsters, when you've seen what they can do?"

"I've seen them stand at my back, I've seen them smoking cigarettes and moaning about the weather – fuck, for all I know, I've seen them help little old ladies across the street, which is a sight more than what most humans are doing these days. A human's day seems to be joining raider groups and torturing people, at least synths are _trying_ to fit in."

"And what happens when they do fit in," the doctor replied, insistent and irksome, "when they turn on you? What happens when this _friend_ of yours decides to shoot up a settlement?"

"I'm feeling quite murderous myself, right now," Pen answered with a shrug, one that had Hancock huffing a laugh and the doctor's brow into furrowing.

"Then what makes us so different?"

Pen's lip raised in a delicate sneer. "I don't shoot first."

The shot seemed to come from nowhere, and Hancock almost ran his hands over his body to check he hadn't been hit, but the doctor simply stumbled back a step, attention still fixed on Pen.

Pen with a gun in her hand and the barrel smoking.

Hancock blinked, and he realised that he had asked for something impossible.

He had asked for Pen to be more fair than feral, but she was both. Not a pendulum swinging from side to side, not even equally weighted scales, but a sword, or a wolf's teeth, because you can blunt either and it can still damn well kill you. Pen gave as good as she got. If she got fair, then she was, and if she got feral, she'd tear someone's fucking throat out.

That was pretty damn good in his eyes.

Possibly a little bit erotic, too, but that was by-the-by.

"Apart from then," Pen muttered as blood bloomed across the doctor's chest and she sagged, lifelessly, to the floor, thankfully without a cliché last line. "Then I shot first."

"I think you're allowed one," he said easily, and grinned at her amused sigh. "If it wasn't you, it was me—"

"I'm sorry."

Hancock stopped with a frown, concerned by the lost look left behind when the humour dissipated. This was an old dance for them, Pen always had to shake herself off after the first kill, as if she had forgotten the life they led. "Why?"

"For not believing you from the beginning."

It was said with such shame that Hancock nearly rocked backwards in shock. "Pen, I don't expect you to believe me _now,_ I ain't given you anythin' except cryptic bullshit. You made the decision on your own."

"No, you tried to tell me something _,_ and I tried to make the right choice."

Hancock paused, looking about a room that wouldn't be used again, not if they had anything to say about it. "Do you think you did?"

"Whatever— _whoever_ a synth is, they have their own right to make a choice, and that is what's right," Pen murmured, her voice ringing with a sense of history, the sort of history lost to books and doomed to repeat itself. "I was scared at first, but being scared of something doesn't mean it's wrong, doesn't mean it deserves to die."

"If only more people thought like that," he replied, quietly happy, but she shook her head in self-deprecation.

"It took me too long, I think a part of me was still pre-war, and I _remember_ the propaganda, remember the fear of the enemy, and fear…" Pen looked about the room, at the darkened cells they hadn't yet dared look into. "Fear is powerful."

"So are we," Hancock supplied, smiling when her lip quirked upwards. "We're gonna need to be, 'cause I counted a good few guards comin' down here."

Pen scowled at the darkened hallway out of the room, the space beyond quiet for now "Talking not an option this time?"

"Even your silver-tongue won't get us outta this one," he teased, but Pen simply leaned into a hip and holstered her gun, settling easily back into her skin, pale and slightly scarred as it was.

"You'd be surprised what my silver-tongue can get us out of."

"An' what mine can get us into," he purred, savouring the way she smiled, the way she raised an eyebrow at him, the way she matched him, shot for shot.

There was no flush on her fair cheeks now, just a feral glimmer in blue eyes and teeth he wanted to feel against his skin. This was Pen on the road, in her element, where she was meant to be.

And he was meant to be right there by her side, and he was as they went down the ramp, Hancock pausing to spit on the doctor's cooling corpse before they peered into the next room.

"It doesn't seem fair," Pen murmured, teeth on her lip. "It's the blind leading the blind, and there's been too much death down here already."

A bullet pinged past her, catching the very edge of Hancock's hat and singeing the fabric.

"Pass me the grenades, please."

"Sure thing, kitten."

 

* * *

 

"This place looks like Pickman's," Hancock grumbled, wondering if he could actually go green with nausea anymore.

Pen snorted, trying to pick her way through the bloodbath and wincing when she put weight on her hip. She had slipped – claret being unsuitable as carpet – and fallen oddly, only to complain about the state of her jeans and not the bruise he was sure now bloomed across her skin

"Pickman would be offended by that, there's no art to this."

Hancock knew she was joking – probably – so he answered with a grin. "No art to a grenade? That's the best kind of art, fire an' chaos."

"You sound like a Gunner," she teased, so he raised a reprimanding brow.

"Now you're offendin' _me_."

"Whatcha gonna do about it, rascal?" Pen hopped away from him, the ease in their banter so at odds to the carnage around them, but it was easy to become inured to this sort of scene.

After all, as Pen had said, they didn't shoot first, most of the time.

Hancock wanted to chase her, adrenaline and bloodlust a dizzying high all of its own, and Pen's laugh was another. He could almost reach her if he stretched, and then he would tug her against him, all bright noises and blood speckles.

She was feral, and she brought out the best in him.

There was something about that sentence that sounded odd, but Pen was getting away from him and he _had_ to catch her, hold her, _have her._

Senses finally dulling after a few hours of tightly-strung nerves, he slipped, and just managed to avoid a red-painted face courtesy of the few guards who had tested their luck when a pale hand caught at his arm.

"Easy there, tiger," Pen muttered, grunting as she hefted him back onto his feet and pretended to dust him off.

"Lookin' after me?"

Pen paused at the sudden huskiness to his voice, but where she might have once shied away from it, now a hint of a smile flirted with her lips. "I made a promise."

Hancock laughed, and the sound had Pen looking away with a nibble to her lip, so he brought her back with a soft touch to her chin, calloused fingers wiping away the crimson smears.

There shouldn't have been an atmosphere in this hell hole, a tender moment should not have passed after what they had just done, but that was their lives, and this was them, bloodied shiners and gunmetal gleams.

Feral fairness and promises to keep.

It was a promise that had them going back into that pit of a room, another that had Pen leading the way and another that had Hancock watching their backs. Keeping people safe, it was what they did.

Too many skeletons and scratches later, they stumbled down a corridor to see a very thick, reinforced door suspiciously ajar.

"Think someone made a getaway?"

Pen nudged the metal with her pistol. "Or wanted it to look that way."

They burst into the room in tandem, but only tapes and recorders clicked back, and in the back, a final cell.

"He's gone," a voice said, harsh with disuse – or worse. "Coward ran when the shooting started."

Hancock hurried forwards, scrabbling for water in the backpack whilst Pen stayed wary, ready for anything. She was ready for an attack, for a surprise, but she wasn't ready for the light when a bulb swung towards the figure chained to the wall.

All of Pen's readiness faltered, her lips parted, her shoulders sagged, and only a breath escaped. "Oh."

Hancock could see under the grime, under the greasy hair and the bloodied manacles, he knew who he saw, but more than that, he knew _what_ he saw. There was still pride to a battered spine and fight in bruised eyes, and he knew that for all Pen had seen so many terrible things since waking up, she hadn't seen torture.

She hadn't seen the survivors.

"Amelia," Hancock murmured, gaining her attention as she peered through the gloom at him, and he said what survivors needed to hear. "They're dead."

Amelia released a sigh that shook her thinning frame, relief and retribution all in one, and Hancock felt Pen give him an appraising glance.

He had dealt with torture victims before.

It was Amelia who told them where the keys were, and for once it was Hancock who garnered all the attention; so when Pen stepped forward to fiddle with the locks, Hancock finally stepped into the light.

Amelia relaxed immediately, fingers massaging her wrists when they were free. "I didn't think the Railroad would come."

Pen hesitated only for a second as Amelia stood on steady legs, but the look Pen threw him said, _she's looking at you, boy-o, you deal with it._

Hancock cleared his throat, hands going wide as he offered Amelia a crooked smile. "We ain't, we're just your garden-variety guardian angels."

Amelia frowned, barely glancing at Pen when it was Hancock she recognised. "But… the Memory Den?"

It went absolutely silent, Hancock inhaling an aborted breath before releasing it awkwardly, and Pen rocked back on her heels in thoughtful surprise.

"Huh."

"Yeah, that's about the size of it," he replied, forcibly casual, and Pen huffed a tiny laugh. Hancock wanted to take her aside, to explain, but there were more important things at hand, such as the pistol he had lifted from a dead guard, such as arming a woman whose fingers itched for a weapon. "Here, the compound's clean, but you never know."

"No," Amelia murmured, looking him up and down as she took the firearm and checked it for ammo, fingers curling expertly around the grip. "You never do, Mayor Hancock."

Pen suddenly looked as if she was chewing on something disgusting for some reason, but she simply crossed her arms and raised a brow. "We can walk you back as far as Bunker Hill."

It almost sounded reluctant, as if she would rather do anything else rather than have Amelia travel with them for a day or two, which was odd, but the offer was genuine, and it would give him time to build bridges with a woman he barely knew.

Safety first, of course, but Stockton's trade was needed too.

Amelia took her time in looking over to Pen, her attention seeming to drag from his as if sticky like sun-warmed Nuka-Cola, and when it did, the two women stared at each other like angry cats around a tasty fish.

Wait, was he the fish?

Hancock looked between them, looked at Pen's easy stance and casual confidence, and he looked at Amelia's sudden wariness when she must have clocked something.

"I can go faster on my own," Amelia answered after a few seconds of raised hackles and puffy tails, and Pen leaned into a happy hip when Amelia looked away. "Is my father…?"

"Last I heard, he's fine," Hancock replied, still a little confused. "It's no trouble for us to go with you."

"No trouble at all," Pen murmured, and Amelia darted a glance Pen's way before speaking to Hancock.

"Honestly, I'll be okay. If it wasn't for these guys getting the jump on me, this never would have happened." Amelia snorted in disbelief, tapping the pistol's barrel against her leg. "I'm going to have Lucas babysitting me for the next millennium."

Pen's lip twitched, and Hancock wondered what had caused it, whether she had gotten into some trouble as a kid and her brother had stuck to her like glue for weeks after.

"Family's fun like that," he laughed, and if he didn't know very well that armed women could take care of themselves – and him – he would have offered to accompany her one last time.

Instead, he held out a jacket that had been thrown over a chair, and Amelia shrugged it on with nary a wince. "Thanks, for everything," she murmured, looking as if she wanted to get out of there as soon as possible, but she paused to look directly at him. "Come by Bunker Hill soon, so I can say thank you properly."

"I don't need a reward," he answered automatically, vaguely noticing the way Pen's eyebrow shot up at Amelia's words, as if she read something in them that he didn't, didn't care to.

He was definitely the fish.

Hancock couldn't quite tamp down the outrageous grin that wanted to spread across his face, the one he wanted to press to Pen's neck and _laugh,_ because this, this looked a damn sight like possessiveness, and he very much liked that sight.

He was a simple ghoul with simple tastes, chems, cards, claws, and kittens that roared.

Hancock took a surreptitious step closer to Pen and tipped his hat at Amelia as if he were from one of those old westerns, and put on a drawl to make Pen laugh. "If'n you please, ma'am, we'll be on our way."

Amelia gave him an odd look, but Pen ducked her head, smile pleased when it came back up along with her arm. "Take some water, it's a long trip back."

"Thank you, both of you," Amelia murmured after sharing one long, inscrutable look with Pen, and then she left, left Hancock grinning and Pen eyeing it askance.

"Can I help you, cowboy?"

There was a hint of sheepishness under the dry tone, and Hancock wanted to tease her for it, wanted to call her out on what was almost a territorial display, he wanted to hold her close and tell her he adored it, adored _her_ , because he would have done the same if the roles were reversed, because it meant…

It meant something, something that brought brightness to this hellhole and confirmation to his thumping, irradiated heart, but this wasn't the place to think about it.

"No, ma'am," he said in that same voice, smile quirking when Pen stepped towards him with her teeth on her lower lip.

"You do that well."

Hancock's brow rose, struggling to keep the drawl when she flushed but refused to look away. "Why, kitten, I believe you have a _fancy._ "

"I do," she replied, tangling their fingers together, "and not a passing one, either."

Hancock paused even as he filed away that little trick of tone for another time. Something had changed between them on this trip, something that had him reaching for her more often, something that had her speaking for him more often.

Words were a strange thing in the Commonwealth now, there were no laws passed by judges, there were no written contracts or spoken pledges, only actions spoke the truth these days, and most of those actions were bloody.

Their actions were simple things, guarding the other's back, secretive smiles and holding hands, and even those were influenced by Pen's sense of things from _before,_ from when people had dates and everything was labelled.

He had been in this for the long haul from the beginning, it was what he did, just as he did for Goodneighbor. He had his words for when he stood on that balcony, and he had a few choice words for raiders and a couple more for Fahrenheit, but he didn't have any words for Pen, he didn't _know_ about those sorts of words, just as he didn't know about dates or labels beyond _ghoul, synth, human._

Sky-blue eyes blinked at him, the eyes of a woman who had gone through the fire and come out stronger, gone through the ice and come out _different,_ and Pen, Pen looked like she had words to say, the sort of words that might well make him admit things before their time, might well make him stammer and stutter and damn it he was an actions man, not a words man.

Not here, not in this pit, not when she still didn't know the truth.

"I need to tell you about the Memory Den."

Pen's mouth opened slightly, confusion writ upon her face before it twisted. "I won't guilt you into telling me, you said it wasn't your secret to tell."

"It ain't, an' I didn't, Amelia did it for me," Hancock murmured, and when Pen wasn't pleased with that answer, he added, "I don't wanna keep it from you, kitten. I don't like it."

Pen hesitated, but maybe she read something in his expression, read something when he ushered her out of the door, away from the blood and the gore and whatever had given Pen _words,_ because she reached for his hand, and the action was enough.

"Okay, tell me," she said quietly, and he did. On the way to the surface, along winding stone corridors and over slick floors, he told her about the synths, about the Memory Den, about the wayward souls who escaped the Institute and wanted to _live._ Live normal lives, not as weapons, not as monsters, but as people, as they deserved to.

Pen's eyes were wide even as she led the way out. "Where do they go?"

Hancock offered a silent apology to a group of people he had never met. "You heard of the Railroad?"

Pen echoed the name, and then again with a laugh, as if it meant something to her, that same sense of history clinging to her voice. "They're the ones who sneak them out?"

"Yeah, exactly," he replied, surprised she had grasped the situation so well. "An' when they get out, some of them don't wanna remember, and if they just wanna think they're human, they come to Goodneighbor."

"What then?"

Hancock's mouth pursed, and he realised that he had started on this explanation without realising where it would take him.

Turned out he had a fuck off amount of words, they just weren't the right ones, weren't the pretty ones that Pen had, that Pen needed, that Pen _deserved._

"They wake up in Goodneighbor and some of 'em are scared, I find a place for 'em. Sometimes it's with the traders, sometimes it's the drifters, an' sometimes it's with me."

Pen parsed through that sentence, and then the reality of it hit her.

"Who?"

"Newton," he replied with immediate honesty. "He was the only one I trusted to go to Pickman's an' come back even without an arm but still be okay – he does it from time to time, makes a killin' in poker with his whole 'arm an' a leg' spiel."

"Newton knows—?"

"Yeah, he was offered the wipe but he didn't wan' it, so he's the only one in Goodneighbor who knows what the Memory Den does behind its back doors."

"Apart from Fahrenheit," Pen supplied absent-mindedly, and he gave her a smile for knowing him so well.

"'Course, Fahr keeps the place ticking over."

Pen was quiet for a while, their footsteps the only thing echoing off the walls until they reached the pipe they had used to get in. "Thank you for telling me," she said suddenly, and when he would have denied her gratitude when it took him so long to say anything, she added, "Thank you for being you, because I'm not sure what sort of person I would have been without you."

Hancock frowned, thumb brushing over hers. "You would've been you."

"No, I would have been ignorant, and I might have been cruel because of it." It was a harsh, honest thing to say, but Pen took the weight of it, took the responsibility, so as he always did, he shouldered some of it too.

"Maybe, but you wanted to learn, you didn't want to believe synths were bad, an' that wasn't just 'cause of me."

"It was," she said with a small smile, the toes of her boots touching his as she turned to face him. "My life changed the day you walked into it."

Hancock thought she was teasing, so he simply grinned. "Yeah?"

"Yes," she murmured, and tilted her head to the side. "You strut in with your most charming grin and that ridiculous hat and you stabbed a man right in front of me."

Hancock's laugh was more of a wince. "Ouch, kitten."

Pen rolled her eyes and smiled. "It was far from a bad thing. You were the one who showed me those things I told that doctor, you taught me about learning and life marking us and being _fair,_ fair when everyone else around you is ruthless."

Hancock's humour had died, and he was left staring at Pen in shock, shock and awe and nerves. "You're not gonna genuinely call me a hero, are you? 'Cause I'm not sure my ego can take such a pettin'."

"You're a hero to Goodneighbor," Pen said with a shrug, stunning him into silence with how _sure_ she was, how convinced she was of his good qualities when all he saw in himself were bad ones. "You might be mine."

Hancock could have been toppled by a breeze, or a puff of Jet. "Yours?"

Pen gave a little nod, looking away from him for a second before glancing back, smile indulgent as she gave him a very quick, all too brief kiss, and then she disappeared into the pipe, water splashing ahead of him as he scrambled to catch up.

Pen was too damn good with those words of hers.

By the time he caught up with her, she was glaring at the muddy bank and complaining about wet socks, which gave him an opportunity to change the subject, to not think about those baby blues batting up at him, to not think about damn _words_ here on the road.

"What do you wanna do about Covenant?"

Pen looked up in surprise, the stars shining on her frown. "What can we do?"

"They'll know what we've done eventually," he replied, and left the rest unsaid.

_Then they'll shoot first._

"You didn't take down Diamond City after the ghoul thing," she pointed out.

"No," he agreed, and it was said with five years' worth of thought behind it, "but maybe I should've done."

It was a decision that plagued him from time to time, a desire to know if he could have made things better with his brother, with the Commonwealth on behalf of ghouls everywhere. Fairness didn't win all wars though, which was why Pen did, Pen who burned bright under pressure and glowed like diamonds in the moonlight.

Pen watched him carefully, and whatever she saw made her shake her head. "Either they stay in there forever, or they learn. There won't be any caravans trading their way after Stockton's had his say."

"An' if they starve?"

"Then nature did her work for us," she replied simply, and he found it rather beautifully put.

"Fair enough, kitten," he murmured, happy to agree with her. "Let's go home."

The word slipped out, but Pen just smiled, a tired, happy thing, and nodded as if it was all she wanted. Hancock set off south and held out a hand, but paused when slender fingers didn't twine with his.

Hancock turned, Pen's name on his lips when he saw her running to the top of the bank, gaze fixed on the sight of smoke on the horizon. He almost called her name again, but it died when he joined her atop the rise to see an orange blur off in the distance, and then she reached for his hand.

Covenant was burning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DUN DUN DAAAAA~!
> 
> I don't say it enough but comments are just the best, they single-handedly make my day, my week, even my year, better. Whether it's feedback, headcanon, meta, or simply to say that you enjoyed something, it makes it all worthwhile! (I totally write quicker too, no pressure.)


	10. Ash

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How are we here already? A whole ten chapters, a whole 60k words of Pen and Hancock. Forgive me some extreme creative licence with Covenant here, and I want to shout out to **boomslang** and **Kallika** for almost guessing a plotline!
> 
> Also, some inspiration for this chapter: Hancock always finds flamethrowers for me? I'm convinced I'm about to be burned alive, but no, it's some rugged ghoul with a wicked grin and a tank full o' fire.

> Of all the comrades that e'er I had,  
>  They're sorry for my going away,  
>  And all the sweethearts that e'er I had,  
>  They'd wish me one more day to stay.
> 
> But since it fell unto my lot,  
>  That I should rise and you should not,  
>  I'll gently rise and softly call,  
>  Goodnight and joy be to you all.
> 
> \- The Wailing Jennys, _'(Fill to me) the Parting Glass'_

The fire was like a beacon on the midnight horizon, the flames flickering over high concrete walls until it looked as if it appeared in mid-air. A floating furnace that drowned out the stars, the light too bright to try and see anything else except a kaleidoscope of orange and blue.

It looked like someone had set Van Gogh's _The Starry Night_ alight, and a part of Pen's chest gave a pang at all the art lost to fire, to time, to chaos.

Covenant burned, the town that had stood still in time's ticking clock, the people that had tried to bring order to a world that wouldn't have it.

Pen shook, just a little, and Hancock's fingers tightened around hers.

"You said it, kitten, nature did its work for us."

Pen shook her head even as the low timbre of his voice managed to hold her steady just as his hand did, the dull flash of red as his jacket brushed against her arm reminding her to take a breath.

Reminding her that everything burned.

"I don't think that was nature's doing."

Hancock raised a brow, his weight settling into a hip and therefore against her, a comforting warmth that felt almost too much when she stared into yellow hues.

Fire was an old fear, the sort of fear that was inborn, a fear that came with the first breath and the last. Fire was safety, light, heat, but it was terrifying too. It was tamed only for a time, moments of a match or hours at the hearth, and one single spark could set it free.

Pen was no longer scared of fire, no longer scared of the _burn_ when it was ice that caused her skin to crawl; the threat of cold that creeped across her eyes and whispered _you will wait._

Wait for the world to turn, and see how it had burned.

But fire, fire was only the beginning, fire was the wave that wiped the shore clean, fire was the call for something better to step out of the ash.

Fire _was_ freedom when frost was the fence, the fetter, the fall.

Pen wondered what would step out of Covenant.

"You think it's Amelia?"

Hancock's tone was pitched carefully neutral, as if wondering whether bias was playing a part, and if Pen hadn't felt concern like frigid fingers down her spine, she might have taken offence to that.

"If it was, I don't think I would stop her," she answered quietly, and Hancock gave a satisfied hum.

"An' they say revenge ain't best served warm."

Pen slid him a look, smile curving tiredly up at the edge before the weight of the world pulled it down again. "If Goodneighbor burned, would you want people to help?"

Hancock stared at her somewhat sombrely, a disbelieving laugh escaping a throat painted in slashes of moonlight. "Kitten, until I met you, I didn't think anybody helped anyone."

Pen snorted, one foot barely lifting from the ground before Hancock stepped alongside her. "Now who's petting whose ego?"

"I'll pet you all day long," he promised, but it wasn't accompanied with the usual teasing tone, this was the word of a man who saw a burning world and said he liked the smell, said he wasn't too fond of trees anyway, because he could damn well adapt. "Just as soon as we get back."

It was a tempting promise, and Pen set it in her mind's eye.

They jogged around the lake back to Covenant, Hancock shortening his stride to keep pace with her, and in that odd haze of the far off fire, Pen realised that he did a lot of things for her. Not just the steadying hands or the portable grenade-carrier, but the things without words, the ones without _thought._

He _believed_ in her, he backed up her deeds and listened to her opinions, he believed in a woman who wasn't sure what she believed in after she stepped out of the ice, he believed in a woman who wasn't sure who she was after she stepped out of the gunfire.

The world was burning, but every burn, every bruise, every beat of her heart since told her the same thing.

She believed in him, too.

If only he wouldn't keep interrupting her whenever she tried to say so.

"Before we—"

"What's that?" Hancock asked, the hand not twined with hers pointing at something just outside of Covenant's walls, something thin and dark in the dirt. The urge to hurry over and check it out was strong, but they hadn't survived this long by hurtling face-first into danger – not without one or two wary glances and a wry comment to be inscribed on headstones, anyway.

Pen gripped her pistol, squeezing back when Hancock let go to draw his shotgun. They needn't have bothered, the flames cast light on everything around them, far brighter than the now-popped floodlights had been. The shadows flickered on the ground as the fire danced through the barbed wire, darkness disappearing entirely when the town's sign snapped in the heat and crashed directly in front of the double doors.

"Oh, shit," Hancock muttered, and Pen tore her gaze from the walls to see what had caught his attention earlier.

Pen's gorge rose in her throat as the faintly sweet smell in her nose suddenly made sense.

The blackened mass was stretched out, scuff marks trailing behind it, but at its head, face turned up and hands vainly clawing for a lake it would never reach, was a body.

When Pen retched, Hancock's palm swept up her spine to settle at the top, thumb firm against the back of her neck when she sagged into his grip. "At least the door was unlocked."

"What—?" Pen's frown faltered as she realised what he meant, realised that whoever had started this fire had done so knowing there was only one way in or out. "I can't tell if that's worse or not."

Pen leaned into the crook of Hancock's arm without thinking, and looked up to see the flames glitter in his eyes, eyes that had watched the world burn and burned a little with it. Hancock's sigh was a heavy one, but his voice was soft. "It gave them a chance."

The being at their feet was evidence of that.

"They were scared of their own shadows," she murmured, shading her eyes against the blaze with her pistol. "They didn't set the trap for Amelia, they just called the cavalry."

"An' that makes it okay?"

Pen tilted her head to the side, acknowledgement in the weary shrug of her shoulders. Everything felt heavier, her rifle doubled in weight and her clothes too tight, too confining, too warm in the heat thrown off from the fire.

"No, it doesn't, but they were used as somebody's trigger too, a different sort of weapon to a synth – a trap, more than anything, because they were frightened, and they were in a trap of their own making in the end."

Hancock's raised brow said that he appreciated her poignancy, but his mouth twisted when he looked at the tips of blue-panelled houses over the darkening walls. "What do we do? There might still be some in there."

Some of the people who knew what happened to the supposed synths they sent to the compound, people who thought that evil only lurked in metal when it flourished just as well in skin.

Still, they were people all the same.

"We help those that ask for it, I suppose." Pen shrugged when Hancock gave her a knowing half-smile, but she responded with one of her own before he could tease her for being a force of good. "Come on, hero."

Hancock tilted his shotgun upwards until it rested against his shoulder, gait a little cocky as Pen peered into the surrounding darkness. "Nah, I'm just the sidekick."

"You've got the hat," she replied simply, and threw him a lingering look over her shoulder as they made their way to the little lean-to guard shack, the place seemingly empty and already covered in soot. "And the jacket."

Hancock snorted, and tested his weight on the fallen sign that blocked the entrance, its incline providing a ramp to the top of the wall. "The hat, okay, yeah, but why the jacket?"

Pen watched him climb, watched the way he kept his balance in a burning world and still managed to wink at her when he caught her looking.

"Death in a duster," was all she said, and he flashed her a surprised, happy grin before dropping down the other side of the gate.

It was the first time she had lost sight of him since arriving in Goodneighbor the other day, and the shock of it had her trying to shove the sign aside, revealing only a part of the door before it opened a scant few inches.

Pen could see shadows through the gap, and one large one limned in firelight, as if it was being clawed backwards into the flames.

"I was wrong," Hancock croaked, stepping away from the door slightly but his palms still held to the wood as if stuck there, sickened realisation opening his face. "There's scratch marks here."

Pen's eyes closed briefly, the smoke stinging something fierce, but she managed to get an arm through the gap, her shoulder wedged painfully against the sign to keep it from shutting the door; but her fingers reached for Hancock's just as he had reached for her when she had almost touched one of Pickman's paintings.

"Some might have made it out."

"Can't tell whether I wanted 'em to," he replied, frowning at his own thoughts before shaking them off. "S'fucking hot in here."

Pen's laugh was a little hoarse, but it was enough to make him smile, so with his hand still in hers, she turned to see if the sign could be moved any more. "There's a chair in the guard hut, we might be able to lever the door open."

"Deathclaw might actually be useful right now," Hancock muttered, so she glared at him.

"Don't jinx it."

"Don't—?"

Pen lurched against the door just as pain exploded at the base of her skull, sickening swoops that flared like tentacles around her throat, sticky and sharp. They yanked her backwards with sharp bites in her neck, and she realised they were fingernails.

Hancock's hand clamped around hers at the last second, her arm jolting in its socket as she felt torn in twain, and heard a growl that sounded a lot like a lion fucked up on whiskey and chems.

"Let her go."

Pen yelped in pain as the fingers pulled again, and vainly tried to follow Hancock's furious gaze over her head, her own hand scrabbling for purchase. Her palm caught on overheated leather, her nails useless against it, so she fumbled for her pistol and shot blindly behind her, a scream heralding the absence of all fingers.

Pen collapsed into the dirt, panting painfully for breath as she raised her pistol to shoot again, vision swimming as she tried to focus on dark leather, white hair, and—

"Swanson?"

Covenant's door guard whined pitifully, his face pushed into the ground as he clamped his hands around his bleeding thigh.

"Pen, Pen are you okay?"

Pen half turned to see Hancock staring worriedly through the gap in the door, sweat and strain on his face as he vainly shoved all his weight against it the unyielding sign. "Yeah," she managed raspingly, but fixed her frown on her unarmed attacker. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"Good question." The new voice came from the shadows beside her, seconds before a boot connected with her wrist, the steel toe snapping against bone. Pen cried out as her gun skittered away, a burst of white hot pain drumming through her arm.

The instinct was to cradle it against her chest, but she forced it over her shoulder, trying to reach for her rifle as Hancock yelled her name and cocked his shotgun, the click almost lost amidst the cracks of burn and bone.

A gloved hand closed tightly around her wounded wrist until she screamed, and they used it to drag her upwards, arm bent between her back and someone's chest as they twisted her to face Covenant, face the flames. Pen ignored the pain, she fucking tried, and jammed her heel against an instep.

Tough boots held firm, and all her struggling earned her was a squeeze around twinging bone.

"Uh-uh," they sing-songed. "Careful now, you might get us both."

Pen's gaze darted to the barely-opened door to see Hancock straining to get through and sighting down his shotgun, Hancock who had fire in his eyes and death in his grimace.

"Move away an' I won't need to."

Pen's breaths were harsh, shallow things, but she skipped one when Hancock spoke, when he _snarled._ The missing breath came in a sickened rush when she realised it had only garnered a laugh that brushed hotly against her ear, something high-pitched and manic.

"Where's the fun in that?"

Hancock's lip twitched like a lion before a roar, his teeth baring when Pen flinched. "You want fun? I'm gonna be fuckin' feral in a sec."

Pen felt her captor's head tilt to the side, felt the giggle against her spine and wanted to shudder, wanted to shake when she could smell a dizzying mixture of burnt flesh and chems. "You _do_ sound fun. Two for the price of one!"

Pen frowned, forced onto her tiptoes when her wrist was moved. They were fucked, they were so fucked, and she had no idea how it had happened or who the hell had her.

Or _why._

"Bring him along," her captor carolled, delight a nasty squeak. "It'll be a good show. Swanson can be the main act!"

Swanson flinched from the dirt, his eyes terrified and wide. "But I did what you said!"

"And you'll be rewarded, don't worry." A thumb pressed hard into Pen's forearm, every nerve ending screaming in pain, but Pen held her tongue, refusing to give any satisfaction.

Until she saw more figures in the shadows.

"There's two more—"

There was brief, intense relief when her wrist was released, and then knuckles collided with the sore spot on the back of her head, her spine thrumming sickeningly.

Pen sank to her knees, the fire flaring bright before it dimmed, before she swayed. Hancock reached for her, horror strangling his voice, his fingers outstretched and his eyes locked with hers, but she could barely see him.

Everything was in shadow, everything burned, and then even the fire went out.

 

* * *

 

Pen's body shrieked at her.

A shiver pulled at every other muscle, pulled at the fingerprint bruises around her throat, the bruises on her head, on her hips from falling in the compound, and some relatively new ones around her arms.

Pen groaned under her breath, and even that felt like it hurt.

There was dirt under her arse and steel at her back, everything too hard and too cold. Warmth came only from the pain, throbbing in her shoulders and stinging in her wrists, but at least it was something.

Pen frowned with her eyes still closed and shifted her arms, trying not to yelp at the agony of moving. There was something tied around her wrists, but with her sleeves so low they had tied over her Pip-Boy and it loosened with every fidget.

"Bloody amateurs," Pen hissed under her breath

Someone desperately hushed her.

Pen snapped upright, her spine smacking against something that wasn't her rifle, and all of a sudden she felt naked even fully clothed, felt more vulnerable than she had on that first day in the new world.

The dirt stretched in front of her, broken by brazier barrels and rust bucket cars piled high. It looked like a maze, the sort of maze that scientists put mice in and watched them scurry, watched them _panic_.

Pen panicked, like a little fucking mouse, and she allowed it for the count of five, five determined breaths, determined to get her bearings, determined to get the fuck out of here and rain _hell_ on whoever had done this.

It was a junkyard, the darkness broken by small points of light through gaps in the car windows. There was too much shadow, too many places for people to be waiting, watching, ready to shoot if she made a move.

Or maybe that was the point, the _fun,_ watching her run, watching her trying to escape.

"Fuck," she whispered, just to hear her own voice, to hear _something_ over the pounding of her heart, and there came that noise again, the sound of someone telling her to be quiet in a panicked hiss.

There were others in here.

Pen leaned as unobtrusively as she could, trying to see as much as possible. The clearing was shaped like a cross, Pen at one tip and a fire in the middle. There was definitely something opposite, but the barrel blocked her view.

She wanted it to be Hancock, and then she didn't, didn't want him to be stuck here with her, wanted him to be away, wanted him to be safe, but who knew how many more there had been in Covenant's shadows.

What if they hadn't brought him here because there hadn't been anything to bring?

Pen shifted slightly, trying to make out the figure across the way, trying to see what was blood and what was blackened. They looked strange, too short in some places but standing as tall as a man.

No, they weren't standing, they were tied around the chest, propped up and hovering over floor that glowed.

The fire in the barrel jumped, throwing light onto sooty hair that might have been white before this, throwing light onto limbs that had once been longer.

_Swanson._

"It seemed right he die as his friends did," someone said, that same manic hint Pen had heard before against her ear, and from another tip of the cross, there came a whimper. "We did his legs first."

Pen tried to swallow, and then she was sick in the dirt.

"Betrayal makes me sick, too," the voice said, the sympathy in it making Pen want to cringe.

Pen wiped her mouth against her aching shoulder and tried to pinpoint the speaker. "Who are you?"

"Just one of many," they replied, and at least four people echoed it. A few came from ahead and high up, a vantage point to see into their little play pit. "Who are _you?_ "

Pen wasn't sure whether to be pleased or not that they didn't know who she was, but it was an odd solace to think this was a random act of violence; a really fucking unlucky one.

"One of many," she replied, thinking of the Minutemen, of Goodneighbor, of her _friends._

Pen winced when the voices laughed.

A generator kicked on, its whirr a rumble through the ground, and Pen craned her head up above Swanson's pyre to see a small stage atop two cars, lit by spotlights as if preparing for a show. There was a woman sat in a lawn chair, lounging across the arms with an inhaler of Jet in each hand and a bodice of bloodied leather across her chest. At her sides like rabid guard dogs were two men, each with fuck off guns and decked in rusted metal.

Raiders. Of all the shit luck…

Pen would bet on there being more in the maze, so she was glib to hide the fear that shook her spine. "Not that many."

It was the woman who spoke, her grin a yellowed, crack-toothed thing that crinkled a tattoo reading _Raze_ across her cheek. "We don't get brave ones often, they normally cry, like the door guard did."

Pen refused to look at Swanson's body, her jaw gritting tightly. "I thought he was with you."

"He thought so too, they all did," Raze commented off-handedly, as if she hadn't burned a man alive – or a whole town to the ground. "Y'know they hated synths so much that we were a good choice?" Raze leaned forwards as if encouraging Pen to join in on the conspiracy. "I dunno about you, but I wouldn't trust me."

Pen eyed the half-shaved head and what looked like a string of ears about a wrist. "People do strange things when they're scared."

Raze fell back into her chair with a laugh, peaky and wrecked. "People do fuckin' stupid things all the time, they're just more fun to play with when they're scared."

Pen had been thinking about running, but at that, she paused. There was nowhere for her to run, not whilst they were looking at her, not whilst one of those guns was trained on her and the other somewhere else in the maze.

Weaponless, lost, and every movement sending pain flickering through her veins, she resorted to the silver tongue that Hancock had praised her for. "Why did they need to trust you?"

"'Cause they paid us, an' otherwise we would've killed 'em."

Pen gave an aborted breath and raised an eyebrow. "But you did kill them."

Raze blinked at her. "Oh yeah, well, there you go."

 _Okay._ Clearly the silver tongue was useless here. If she had to deal with anyone, raiders were the worst, they were insane, you couldn't reason with insane.

Insanity nipped at your ankles, and when you reached down to bat at it, it pissed on your face and laughed.

"We found the other place, the prison, an' we wanted it. Guess our surprise when door guard, 'ere, tells us some chick and a ghoul are killin' everyone." Raze looked down at Swanson as if he was an idiot. "I think he thought we'd help, not sure why, we have a whole place full of cells just waitin' to be filled, now."

Pen froze, horror a dank, dirty pit in her stomach. They had essentially cleared out the place for someone else to move in, the way ants move into a termite mound like a plague.

All she could think of was how _inhuman_ it was, how she had faced so much barbarism in the short time since she had awoken – but really, was it so different from the world she had once known? At least this one had people willing to fight in it, people to fight _for,_ people like Nick and Newton, Codsworth and Charlie, Daisy and Hancock.

_Hancock._

Fuck everything, she was going to die without telling Hancock… without telling him anything, without telling him _enough._

The Minutemen would think she had abandoned them, the settlements would flounder, Goodneighbor would forget her; Nick would go looking, MacCready too, they might get hurt doing it.

Hancock might miss her.

"So," Raze called brightly, "as you've been so fuckin' chatty, you can choose how you go."

Pen's head had fallen forwards, but now she lifted it, eyeing the makeshift stage tiredly. "Bullet to the brain?"

Raze wrinkled her nose. "Boo, you're no fun."

There was a scuffle somewhere nearby, a groaning of metal as something must have moved slightly. No doubt a car would fall on top of her and she'd go out being smothered to death by a 4x4 – fossil fuels would kill her off after all.

It sounded again, but it got deeper, eager, and all of the hair on Pen's body stood on end.

That was no car, but fuck she wished it was.

One of the raiders, this one with a mohawk that reminded her unhappily of Newton, squinted into the darkness of the cross, and Pen realised that one of the ends must be open.

Had she been that close to the exit all this time?

"Ferals, Raze," he called, his shitty pipe rifle held close to his eye as he prepared to take the shot.

"Wait."

Pen had been wriggling on the spot, trying to see if she could possibly roll under one of the cars and squirm away. At the command, she hesitated, and saw Raze's attention flick back to her. "Nah, let it have its fun."

"Hardly fair," Pen hissed, and received a shrug for her efforts.

"It's fifty-fifty."

The whimpering started up again, something terrified and frantic from around the corner, and it was Pen's turn to hush them when the groaning picked up in intensity.

Raze giggled, settling into her chair like humanity used to before the bombs fell and something good was on telly; except now the good show was Pen and some poor stranger getting ripped to shreds by a feral ghoul.

Pen held her breath when something shambled into view on the far side of the clearing. It was slow, slower than usual, and a furiously buzzing part of her brain wondered if it was wounded, if she could outrun it.

It would see the other captive first, and that should have been a good thing, it should have been a chance for survival, for betrayal.

"Hey," Pen squeaked, and squeezed her eyes shut when her stomach tried to revolt again, when her brain called her a fucking idiot in her own voice and her heart a hero in Hancock's. "Hey!"

The feral actually hesitated, its head jerking towards her and its inhale sounding loud over her own heartbeat.

Pen vaguely wondered if she smelled good, and tried to force a smile when she remembered Hancock holding her close as she dozed and murmuring, _warm rain an' gun oil._

 _Petrichor,_ she had whispered, naming one of those things and surprising him into a flush when he realised she was awake.

He had repeated the word, and when she smiled, simply called it, _Pen._

She wanted to cry, and it stung, it stung everywhere, until everything ached and she could barely see through the tears that refused to fall. She had been so close, so close to something that felt like happiness even in this burning world, and now she was going to lose it all.

The feral approached, heavier on its feet than she expected when she was trussed up for the kill like a fucking goat on a chain. It's typical bald head gleamed in the firelight, and Pen shuffled backwards, a car door digging into her shoulder blades as she moved.

This was it, she was going to die to a feral still dressed in its damn clothes. They weren't as rotted as usual, a jacket still on its lopsided shoulders, but there was something wrong with its chest, as if it had been clawed open, but then Pen blinked and realised it was—

Frills.

_No._

Pen whined loud and desperately, a pained keening in her throat at the sight of glowing eyes that had comforted her once, but now it was terrifying, flaring oddly in the flickering firelight.

"Rascal." It was a breathless lament, a denial, a mourning, and then she shook, and the tears started to fall, they fell like her heart and her head and every single one of her hopes.

The eyes looked gold, like sparks caught in jet, like her heart caught in calloused fingers, and it broke.

Hancock had turned feral.

Pen wanted to deny it, she wanted to crawl to her feet and shake him, wanted to crawl to her feet and kill whoever had done this. Had they tortured him until he snapped, had he escaped Covenant only to fall on the way here?

Had he been trying to rescue her?

She wanted to deny it, but somewhere in her little pre-war heart, she knew it was all true.

Pen didn't know ghouls, she didn't know raiders, she didn't know _this world,_ this world of guns and gore, but she thought she had. She had laid her head on Hancock's shoulder on that starlit roof after Pickman's and told him she had wanted this, that she had been _bored._

2077 had been a life that revolved around wariness, around war, about worrying when the other shoe would drop. Pen had worried about paying her bills, about bombs on the tube, about whether her brother would get shipped out again.

Life was waiting for the shoe to drop, and the shoe was worn by the world as it kicked you down.

Pen had first known the world didn't care when her parents couldn't afford to send her on a school trip, she knew when her first dog died too young and her brother never got old, she knew the world didn't give a shit if she was sad, if things were _unfair._

But this wasn't that world, and she thought she had owned it, she knew what the world could throw at her and she would roll with the punches, she could shoot better now, she could eat easily and sleep well, she had friends and allies and Hancock, the world wouldn't beat her again.

And yet here she sat, bloodied and bruised and beaten. She had made peace with losing her life, losing her friends, losing their trust if they went looking for her to find only scraps. But they were made of sterner stuff, they had been born into this world, they had _evolved_ , they had been bred into it, they would survive.

When she had woken up in this pit, Pen had shrugged battered shoulders and said, _I will survive through my friends, they will remember me, because they are strong._

The world turned lazily, scorched and scorned, and showed her Hancock, who stumbled into the pit not as the ghoul she knew, but something beaten, and something broken.

 _Yes,_ the burned world whispered, _but you are not._

Pen trembled, she bit her lip and shook her head, but she _knew,_ she knew she wasn't a product of irradiated generations, she wasn't built to chain chems and kill to survive, she hadn't _evolved._

She was the primate, she was the sixtieth figure in an eighty-figure chart, she hadn't survived all the odds like Hancock had, she hadn't fought her way here with a hat on her head and people rallied behind her, she had cheated in an ice box, and the world was righting her wrong.

The world had beaten her one last time, and it would be her end.

Pen felt the fight drain out of her, she sagged, she sobbed, and she surrendered to a force that knew her better than she knew herself. If there was any sort of afterlife, she knew Hancock would try apologising to her for eternity for this one.

Still, at least she'd get to see what he looked like before the radiation.

She bet he was blonde.

The restraints around her wrist went slack when she slumped, the rope slipping down her Pip-Boy and freeing her arms. Pen still didn't move, she couldn't, not when moving might mean killing him, might mean living in a world where he didn't.

She could, she could try, but she wasn't sure she wanted to, wasn't sure she wanted to live in a world without a hero.

Pen looked up, her cheeks wet and her chest heaving, and froze when a knife clattered near her feet.

"Run, kitten."

_You fucking what._

Hancock, _Hancock_ , not a feral, Hancock stood between her and the stage, and winked, like some fucking hero in a regency romance novel. As Pen stared, he twisted on one foot and launched at the fire barrel, kicking it away and dousing them all in darkness.

He hadn't appeared like a knight on a frothing steed, he wasn't riding a rad stag in a suit of gleaming power armour, because death didn't need all that, death showed up with a red duster and a snarl that sounded like the rip of a motorcycle engine, and he was her fucking hero.

"Shit, get the lights!" Raze screeched, and Pen was fairly certain at least one of the raiders fell off the stage.

By the time they managed to turn one of the spotlights around, Pen had scrambled around the corner, borrowed knife at the ready to free whatever poor sap was caught there, and skidded to a stop.

It was Talia, the skittish mechanic from Covenant who had been too scared to talk to her, who had avoided her gaze when Pen looked, but had stared whenever she thought Pen wasn't looking.

In the space of a second, they watched each other, Talia's eyes widening and Pen's eyes narrowing, until something stood in the way of the floodlight. Pen turned to see Hancock climbing up to the makeshift stage to grab what looked a lot like a flamethrower.

It explained how the raiders had set Covenant alight, at least.

There was a click, and then the strange whoosh of air that almost drowned out a flurry of yells just as Pen dived for Talia. Her thin wrists were bloodied and raw, and she flinched when Pen cut the ties and grabbed a slim shoulder, forcing her to look up.

"Can you run?"

Pen had to shout over the flamethrower, but Talia nodded frantically, so Pen dragged her up and pushed her in the direction Hancock had come from. Talia made it one step through the opening before a gate slid into place behind her, another raider springing down from the outer wall and daring Pen to try him.

He had a gun, Pen didn't, so she did as Hancock said and ran.

It was good advice.

There were slim gaps between the cars, just large enough to slip through and catch her shirt on something sharp. There was a sting, a tear, and the clatter of a gun butt against the makeshift metal walls, an approaching rumble that had her scurrying backwards. It was a fear tactic, she knew that, but it damn well worked anyway, and the raider that followed her into the gap knew it.

"Run, little rabbit," he taunted, grin lecherous and weapon down, as if he was enjoying it, as if he wanted to chase, so she did the only thing she could think of and punched him in the nose. His head snapped back, and Pen gasped a cuss word and sucked on a knuckle.

She wasn't a melee girl, she was range, her dead zone started about two metres away and then it was just down to contact shots and ducking the arterial spray, not cramped fingers and aching arms. "Fucking ow."

Fingerless gloves came grasping for her, a filthy hand catching at her cheek and squeezing, so Pen instinctively bit. It might have been a thumb, all she knew was that it tasted awful and she was going to need a rabies shot. The raider screeched in pain, drawing back enough for Pen to spit and run. Distance, she just needed distance. There were more gaps to slide through, there were things to climb on, she could throw herself over the wall. Hancock had told her to run.

She already knew that she wasn't going to, she wouldn't leave him.

The rabbit hunter was somewhere behind her, herding her like a sheep into a pen, a rabbit into a snare, and the way he had looked at her said that she might literally be on the menu; so Pen kept going forwards, kept twisting around corners, kept hoping Hancock would be ahead of her.

He wasn't, but her hunter was.

Pen was getting really tired of being slammed into cars, her spine feeling permanently curved against wing-mirrors and broken windows. One fingerless glove had her right wrist above her head, knowing it for the pained one, and the other hand held a gun against her throat, the barrel pushing hard into the soft skin.

He hadn't seen the knife.

"You punch pretty, little rabbit."

Pen snarled, and wondered if it sounded as scary as Hancock's did. "How the fuck do you punch pretty?"

The grin got closer, way too fucking close, and he squeezed her screaming wrist when she squirmed in disgust. "'Cause I _liked it._ "

Hips ground against hers, and Pen reacted.

Blood spilled across her hand and something hot and heavy slapped against her front. The hunter's eyes widened and Pen just about managed to smack the gun away before it fired, the shot pinging against metal and her ears ringing enough to muffle the sound of a body hitting dirt.

Her left hand trembled, the hunter's stomach contents sticky and putrid, and she nearly dropped the blade in revulsion.

It had been too easy, too easy to end a life so close and so personal, and it was so _dirty._ She already felt too warm, getting warmer with every burst of the flamethrower, and now it was like being doused with a filthy red shower, marked by death, marked _for_ it.

Pen wanted to throw the knife, she wanted to get rid of it, wanted to wash her hands and fucking run. She wanted to run to Hancock, wanted to run _home,_ wanted to run, and run, and— One breath, two, and then she re-gripped the slippery hilt and hefted the fallen gun, needing to speak, to claim her confidence back.

"Like that, dick?" The reediness of her voice sounded odd, but not as odd as the hoarse cry on the wind.

"Pen?"

"I'm okay," she called over a half-dozen cars and who knew what else separated them, and looked around at the red-spattered ground to say quietly, "Just fucking lost."

Sweat-streaked and sooty, she followed the sounds of screaming. There must have been more people in the maze, there were too many voices, and far too much gunfire, half of it sounding faraway.

One was close, rhythmic, and Pen prowled to a stop, fingers clammy with drying blood as she saw someone kneeling beside a car, scoped rifle resting through the window and watching a ghoul tussle with a raider.

That was her fucking rifle, and Hancock's hat on their head.

Pen threw herself at the shooter, knocking her rifle off balance and forcing a pair of shoulders to the ground, the slim pickings in armour telling her it was a low-life, the lowest rung on the ladder; a raider she didn't recognise, but he certainly knew her.

"Minutemen," he coughed, and his narrowed gaze flicked to the side, where Hancock had stood, and back to her disgustedly. "Ghoul bait."

The hissed term surprised her, the easy slide of metal into flesh did not.

More red, more heat, more fetid breath, and Pen didn't recognise herself when she pulled the blade out with a slick _shuck_ only to plunge it in again, fervent and furious at the thought of something daring to hurt Hancock.

The ghoul she was apparently bait for.

The world tipped a little, then it slanted, and the raider rolled them with one last grunt, his weight pushing hard onto her lungs and the knife slipping to twist harder into slowing heart. The steel bit into her fingers before she registered it, her hands unused to knives, to bloody flamethrowers.

Pen sagged, trying to catch her wind under rusted metal and her own damn rifle. One push, that was all she needed, but even that seemed like too much to handle right now. Her arms were ruined, even her bones were sore, but she managed to reach out for the battered tricorne and push her hair back with bloody palms.

"Get your own hat," she muttered to the dead raider, and let her head thump against the ground just as glass shattered nearby, just as something whistled, something whooshed, and the sharp smell of alcohol stung her nose.

From upside-down, Pen saw a spark that arced through the air, and for one bated breath, nothing happened.

Just as dawn clawed its way over the horizon, flames clawed their way over the wall of cars, and the fear that humanity was born with finally reared its head again.

"Oh shit, _oh shit_ ," Pen chanted, and forced her fucked up hands against dead weight and sloppy chest. Colours danced behind her eyelids, black spots for the pain, white flickers for the fire, and red, so much red. She almost had it, almost had the space to roll, and then another starburst flared above, raining glass and glare everywhere.

It _burned,_ and it didn't stop.

Patterns played out in the veins of her eyes, mini mushroom clouds and falling skyscrapers, and she wanted to scream. All this time escaping the bombs and now she was going to die from a fucking car exploding. It wasn't the bombs, it wasn't the ice, it wasn't humanity, it was fire.

At least it was warm.

Fire was the beginning, fire brought out the gold sparks in Hancock's eyes, the sparks caught in jet, the sparks that set the flame free.

Pen thought of calloused hands and crooked smiles, she thought of proud tricornes and battered dusters, she thought of how she felt with dustered death at her side and crooning her name.

"Kitten!"

She felt free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there we go…
> 
> I'M KIDDING. There's another chapter, stop throwing things at me. I have work in five hours and still haven't slept just so I could post this on time!


	11. Diamond

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I adore every single one of you, your comments have got me through some shit irl and I can't thank you enough – except, well, with more fic, right? As always, thanks to InkQuery for betaing and being generally amazing encouragement as this has gone on. You're an absolute star! Also, [there is art for this fic](https://inkquery.tumblr.com/post/144780682870/an-art-gift-for-comehitherashes-hithers-hancock) from that very same talented star! Pen and Hancock now physically exist and it's wonderful!

> Around the world I've searched for you,  
>  I travelled on, when hope was gone, to keep a rendezvous.  
>  I knew somewhere, sometime, somehow,  
>  You'd look at me and I would see the smile you're smiling now.
> 
> It might have been in County Down,  
>  Or in New York, in gay Paris, or even London town.  
>  No more will I go all around the world,  
>  For I have found my world in you.
> 
> \- Frank Sinatra, _'Around the World'_

Hancock should have known that Pen wouldn't run.

He had sighted the scope through the car window, seen the familiar rifle, seen familiar death, but then he saw familiar blonde when Pen thudded into the shooter's side, the knife he had given her a red gleam as it flashed through the smoky air.

He would have run to her, he would have grabbed her around the waist and laughed, he would have kissed the woman who had saved his life, but there were new shouts around the walls, new guns and new bodies, and Hancock had Pen's back just as she had his.

_This one's on you, boy-o._

Hancock clambered up onto the fire-blasted stage, boots slipping in the ash, and turned to see the remaining raiders shooting over the walls, shooting at something scarier than them, apparently. They were too busy defending to notice him, so he managed to hop from roof to roof under the radar before finally slamming against the outer wall.

"There's another one up there!"

Hancock yanked himself downwards, one hand squeezing on barbed wire as he tried to steady, tried to see what was outside.

A handful of heads hidden amongst brush, and one had a Minutemen hat on.

Hancock shoved his bloodied hand in the air and called, "Hey, hey, quit shooting!"

A bullet pounded into the wood he had ducked behind, and Hancock wasn't sure if the strangers were one of Pen's settlements or they were just fucking idiots.

"I'm unarmed," he yelled, excusing the lie when he wasn't planning on shooting them, and then excused another. "There's Minutemen in here!"

It was kinda true.

A score of shells, and Hancock decided they were idiots after all. His voice cracked as he swore at them, as he demanded them to stop, begged them to fucking _wait,_ but all they saw was a ghoul in the frying pan. The bullets kept coming, the raiders shot back, and it was anarchy.

And that was before they started throwing molotovs into a yard full of cars.

Hancock jerked around, gaze whipping to where he had last seen blood and blonde, and his stomach dropped. "Pen."

There was too much radiation in this place, it was a death trap, it was a torture chamber for a human who hadn't been born in a rad storm, but now she might die in one.

He'd been in the blast radius for a nuke grenade, he'd felt the heat from an exploding car, he'd felt the sweet, sweet burn of radiation when it flooded out like a wave's shadow.

Pen wouldn't survive that, and if she did, she'd _change._

Hancock didn't know shit about becoming a ghoul, he'd done it differently, just as he did everything, but he'd met enough ghouls along the way, he'd met placid ghouls and peaceful ghouls, he'd met silent ghouls and submissive ghouls, he'd never met one like Pen.

If personality affected the ghoul, affected the _change,_ Pen was already too feral, too fierce, too fucking beautiful; if she turned, she'd go straight for the throat – probably his, and she wouldn't be the first.

She'd be the last, though, because he wasn't sure he could stop her, and he wasn't sure he'd want to live without her.

Fuck, he had turned into one of those fools in MacCready's comic books, some lovesick brahmin calf because of a slender strip of pale fury, because of sky blue eyes and a smile that made his damn world turn.

Just as the explosion made it stop.

It rumbled through the earth, his every muscle tightening even as he groaned deliriously at the burst of radiation. It swept over him like an invisible sea, the heat of the fire following after.

Something so fucking deadly shouldn't feel so good.

Then again, he could say the same about Pen.

 _Pen._ Reality smacked him about the face, and he forced twitching eyelids open, forced himself to walk, to run, to scramble across the junkyard and ignore the siren song of radiation.

He had another siren to find, one more like the myths, because Pen was the Commonwealth's guardian angel, wingless and wonderful and enough to wreck him upon the rocks. There were no watery depths to lose himself in here though, only more fire and brimstone, and Hancock gladly stepped into hell for her.

There was a stench in the air, and Hancock had wielded a knife for long enough to know the sick smell of a belly wound. He almost tripped on the body when he found it, intestines wrapping round his ankle as he skidded around the corner, shuddering at the waves of radiation.

Pen might not have any skill with a blade, but she had guts.

His laugh was a pained, breathless thing.

Something else exploded, wood and metal shrapnel raining down upon his head, but Hancock forged on, convinced he was close to where he had last seen her tackling his shooter, last seen her saving his life.

It was too hot, that burned blood stink everywhere he turned, steel doors and glass sizzling against his skin as he moved about, rubble and fallen fences filling the air with dust and soot. The car had taken down the closest wall and his throat strained for cleaner air, but he'd been huffing Jet for years, he knew how to deal, he knew how to _survive._

A sniper barrel stuck out of a pile of flotsam and jetsam, but when Hancock tugged at it, it only pulled his shooter above a mess of debris and dirt. Hancock swore, and didn't know why it sounded choked, why it felt _wet._

It was Pen's rifle, and she would kill him if he left it like this, left it dirty when she spent so much time with that spicy sweet gun oil in the sunshine.

The thought _hurt,_ the thought of laughing blue eyes and knotty blonde hair and that _voice_ —

He heard it.

Hancock froze, every inch of him straining to listen, and he shifted his weight to hold Pen's rifle more steadily.

"Ow."

Hancock slung the weapon over his shoulder, the weight of it as comforting as his shotgun normally was. It took three hard pulls to move the shooter's body aside, throwing up clouds of smoke that made him cough.

And someone else did too.

"Pen," he murmured raggedly, sinking to his knees as he tried to move all the shit off of her, wood chips and glass tumbling as he moved. Completely discoloured and eyes squeezed shut, he recognised his hat on her head, the scar that stretched down her face, and the terribly tight, cupid's bow lips.

Lips that were turning blue.

"Oh, shit."

Pen was freezing, her skin covered in blood and ridiculously chilly under his shaking fingers. She always ran cooler than him, always commented on how nice and warm he was, but this, this was too cold, she felt like ice.

Ice.

 _No_ , not that.

"Pen," he murmured, panic edging his words as his hand edged her face, his thumb warming a scarred cheekbone. "Pen, darlin', please."

The faintest frown crossed her brow, and the smallest whimper opened her lips. "Cold."

Hancock was almost sick with his sigh of relief, and it was the work of seconds to drag his duster off and throw it over her, to bundle her up in his arms and mumble, "I know, kitten, I know. I've got you."

Pen turned her face into his chest, dust and blood covering his shirt, but he would have jumped into the fire itself if it meant he'd be warmer for her, if it meant Pen wouldn't be _cold._

There were still shouts in the junkyard, still bullets and burning, but Hancock didn't care, just as they hadn't cared.

It took him five steps to climb over the downed fence, another twenty before he looked over his shoulder to see fire mark the horizon for the second time that evening, and another hundred for Pen to brokenly whisper his name.

Hancock carried his world in his arms, and nothing would stop him from keeping it safe.

_I've got you._

 

* * *

 

The boathouse's walls were too thin, an arctic gale swept in through the cracks and rain dripped through the roof. There were no locks on the doors, no bars on the windows, and it was cold, too cold, and Pen was getting colder.

No matter what he did, he couldn't warm her up.

There was a persistent clicking, the snap of claws and skitter of too many legs; something was closing in, and the guns had gone.

He was going to lose her, and the thought killed him.

Hancock jerked awake, his heart in his throat as his body desperately tried to filter away the remnants of last night's radiation, his pulse too fast and every nerve ending energised, _eager._

The walls were thin but there wasn't any wind, wasn't any rain, the boathouse was secure, secure enough to hole up through the night and hold Pen as close as he could.

The clicking didn't go away.

The wooden floorboards were hard under his left shoulder, his right pushed over Pen's, her back held tight to his chest and his jacket flat beneath her.

She was warm.

Hancock warily lifted himself up onto an elbow to see Pen loading and reloading the pistol he had saved from outside Covenant, murmuring sweet nothings to it.

"The gun gets all the thanks, eh?"

Pen tensed for a breath, but then she rolled, the pistol forgotten, and she was right there against him, palm on his chest and a leg nudging between his.

Hancock had attempted a smile, had tried to keep his cool, keep it easy, keep it one day at a time, but the sight of those sky-blue eyes so close to his had his chest squeezing tight, a hoarse edge to every breath.

From the moment Pen's hand had dropped from his yesterday, he had managed to stay in control of himself, his anger a honed, careful thing, forged in fire and burning to spill blood in her name.

There was still some on Pen, her hands as rust-coloured as his and her hair streaked with crimson, but she was alive, she was _alive._

All that careful anger drained away, and in its place was something raw _._ "I couldn't find you," he murmured hoarsely, the words ripped out from his throat. "Those fuckers took you away an' I _couldn't find you._ "

Pen shuffled impossibly closer, her nose almost against his cheek and her fingers clenching in his shirt. "You found me," she said simply, as if she had never expected anything else, but he had seen the grief on her face, the shock, because she had thought she was lost, thought she had lost _him._

Hancock took a breath; it was too shallow, too sharp, but it was sure, sure that he might be a fucked up ghoul with a people problem, but this was one promise he could make. "I'll always find you."

Pen's eyes widened, only for a second, and her next breath was shallow and sharp and sure too. "I know."

It was said with such wondering conviction, but also with something he wasn't sure he understood, something that felt like a _rightness,_ something that had shot and clawed its way into his chest and curled up there, covered in claret and damn well content. Hancock didn't know what to do, knew nothing beyond holding Pen close, breathing her in and reminding himself that she was okay, that she was there.

Reminding her that he was, too.

Hancock pushed up and rolled, his knees framing Pen's hips and his hands doing the same around her head. Pen curled with him, a knee bending so that her thigh pushed against his, but she winced at the movement, winced again when he tried to move away and bumped her wrist.

"Shit," he muttered, feeling like an idiot. "I'm sorr—"

Pen's bloodied fingers curled into his shirt collar and then she arched, her lips pressing against his and his name escaping on a shuddering breath. Hancock had half a second to worry about hurting her, hurting her _more_ , but then teeth scraped against his skin and he sank into the kiss with a groan.

Fuck the radiation, Pen's teeth were the sort of poisons he craved, and her smile the ambrosia.

Hancock was careful not to put too much weight on her, careful not to let her feel the way his arms shook, the way his _body_ shook, ragged relief and heady happiness and _Pen,_ fair and feral Pen pressed close and kissing him as if he was the only thing she understood.

As if he was the only thing she wanted, and he was fucking happy to give it to her.

Hancock pushed, just a little bit, and the way Pen keened needily had him sighing into her mouth, had him catching that plump lower lip between his teeth just to hear it again. Pen's tongue nipped out to press against his mouth as if she wanted to taste him, as if she wanted to drown in the sensation, and her grip got a little too tight, and her breaths came a little too fast.

A warning bell went off in his head that sounded suspiciously like Fahrenheit calling him a twat, telling him to _look._

He knew what survivors looked like.

"Kitten," he murmured, carefully breaking the kiss, turning it into something softer, slower, sweeter, and when he gently pressed his forehead against hers, against crystal clear glass, Pen shattered.

"It was so cold," she whispered brokenly, and her touch turned desperate, as if seeking out his warmth, and he gave as much as he could, prepared to simply hold her as she rode out the storm of the night before. "I thought the car would take me, but it didn't, it just trapped me, trapped me under dead weight in a chill wind and the fire was too far away and I was so _cold_."

Pen's eyes were open and yet she wasn't seeing him, focused on some middle-distance where ice cracked at the edges of her mind and centuries passed in a blink. It was somewhere he couldn't go, so he brought her back to him with fingers under her jaw and a quiet, "It's okay, I've got you."

Pen blinked, and although she relaxed slightly, she still seemed to push closer, trying to touch as much of him as possible. "Yes," she murmured, and eyes the colour of open skies snared him all over again. "I remember you telling me."

Hancock stared for a moment then, because there were many things he couldn't remember about last night, and a lot he would never forget; the words he had whispered into Pen's soot-streaked hair, though, those had been feverish things, desperate things.

Heartfelt things.

"I gotta change your bandages," he announced suddenly, hoping to knock Pen off her current train of thought, hoping she wouldn't remember the stupid things he had said when he thought only the stars had been listening.

They weren't things he could say again to the daylight, to the sun, to open sky eyes. Pen who flitted about the Commonwealth with a helping hand for all, Pen with skin like cream and a smile like salvation, Pen who made him think such fucking foolish thoughts that it was as if he wasn't a mayor, wasn't a ghoul, wasn't anything.

He couldn't say those thoughts to her.

Pen's fingertips brushed his chest, and his lungs felt like they were going to fucking burst, and he amended that thought. He couldn't say those things _here,_ not when they were both battered and bruised, not on the road.

With her hand in front of her face, Pen frowned. "They're still bleeding. Why?"

Hancock chewed on his cheek and gently ensconced a bandaged palm with his own rough one. "The radiation's thinned your blood, you took a hefty dose."

Pen stiffened beneath him, fear pinching at her eyes. "My Pip-Boy was clicking like crazy. I couldn't see well, maybe I can't see well now? I think I have a headache. Is that a symptom? Shit, I have radiation poisoning, don't I?"

Hancock tilted his head, brow raised high as he spread his fingers through hers, linking their hands together. "How many can you count?"

Pen squinted at them, and then at him, taking his cue when he wasn't worried. "Eleven, I've grown an extra."

Hancock snorted, but pressed a kiss against a fingertip anyway. "Makes up for my missin' toe."

"Funny," she snickered, and then paused. "Are you really missing a toe?"

"Is that really the sort of question you need to be askin' right now?"

Pen pursed her lips in thought, absent-mindedly playing with his thumb. "Why am I not suffering from the radiation more? I mean, my head _does_ hurt, but that could be for a million reasons. Did you soak it up?"

Hancock had been about to answer seriously, but at that he had to start grinning. "Are you callin' me a sponge?"

Pen glowered at him, but there was still a smile playing about her lips. "I don't know how it works!"

"Yeah, well, neither do I, kitten. Let's just be grateful you're here to ask me if I'm a fucking sponge, right?" Hancock chuckled when she gave a resigned pout, but he took the hint when he tried to move off of her and she squeezed his hand. "Can't really clean you up if I'm sat on you, darlin'."

Pen managed to shrug elegantly even curled under him and sprawled on his jacket. "Try."

Hancock tried not to smile like an idiot, he really did, but if he was being honest then he didn't want to move either, and so the situation found him carefully unravelling the makeshift bandage he had torn from his shirt last night. The knife wound was still gory, still littered with smaller ones, and Hancock shook his head.

"Forgot you ain't used to carryin' a knife."

Pen made a face that said, _and you are?_

Hancock reached down to his boot and pulled out his favourite blade, the one with the wicked curve to the point. He treated it with the same care and attention that Pen showed her guns, and it took care of him in return.

Or, at least, it took care of _others_ for him in return.

Pen's wide eyes blinked twice. "Bloody hell."

Hancock preened under the attention, inwardly vowing to show her just how well he could throw, too. Knives were commonplace in personal armouries these days, even when he wasn't using his for gutting people, he gut animals too, and cut rope – just as Pen could have cut the rope her wrists had been tied with.

Hancock's grin sharpened, something promising and protective in it. "I'll get you one."

Pen's fingers had been about to touch the flat of the blade, and Hancock found he would have very much liked to see that, but Pen pulled back in surprise. "I was always told it was dangerous to carry a knife if you didn't know what you were doing with it."

Hancock sheathed it with a disbelieving scoff. "Where the fuck did you live, a church?!"

Pen let her head fall back to the floor with a laugh. "You have absolutely no idea about pre-war life, do you?"

"Never seemed any point," he muttered, and wondered why Pen had made him hungry for knowledge since he had met her; because he didn't know about life then, he didn't know about dates or dial-up or deodorant or any of the weird shit Pen mentioned occasionally.

But he wanted to know, he wanted to know because Pen needed someone that did, someone she could talk with, someone who would understand, just as she didn't need to hear the stupid things in his head that really weren't suited to hardwood floors and the faint smell of damp.

He would say something when they got back, when they were safe, when he could think about it properly and give Pen all the proper words and the proper emotions.

Then again, he was just a fucked up ghoul with a people complex, there probably weren't any proper words, there wasn't anything he could say that could convey how he felt, could convince her it was true, but he could try.

"Did you see Talia?" Pen asked suddenly, gaze fixedly on the ceiling as he wound another strip of his shirt around her twitching palm.

"Who?"

"That girl from Covenant, the mechanic. She was in the junkyard too."

"Didn't see nothin' kitten, only you," he said honestly, but didn't clarify that he hadn't had eyes for anything else, his every intention focused on seeing her safe, on seeing her smile. "Did she make it out?"

"Yes," Pen murmured. "I hope so."

Hancock tied off the knot and settled some of his weight on Pen's legs, wondering whether he should care about some girl who advocated the abuse of synths. He knew that battles had to be picked, wars were waged against raiders, against the Institute, but Pen seemed to find them everywhere, always a fight to be fought.

A frown crossed his brow then, because there were people out there who would kill for someone like her.

He already had, and he would do it again.

"Hey," Pen said quietly, drawing him back to the present with an odd little smile. "Home?"

Hancock swallowed the question he wanted to ask and simply stood, pulling her up with him and gaining a smile of his own when she didn't let go of his hand.

_Is it home for you?_

Home, home was safety, home was where people went to lick their wounds and stock up on ammo, home was where he stood on the balcony, where he drank in the bar, where he practiced shooting in the alleys and took stock in the warehouses, home was where he waited for Pen.

Home was where he would tell her, tell her that it was home for her, too, if she wanted it.

So was he, if she would have him.

Too many fucking ifs.

 

* * *

 

If they would make it home at all.

"On your left, behind the bus."

Pen's hissed warning had Hancock leaning over the guard rail and eyeing the stretch of road between them and whatever hive of nasties they had scared up this time.

It was mostly ferals, but there were some other odd noises from beyond the cluster of buildings, an overgrown courtyard home to fuck knows what. Normally, that would have been fine, that was normal, except for one very important fact.

He didn't have his fucking shotgun anymore.

Instead it was Pen's rifle in his hands, and Pen was the one doing the close-quarters stuff whilst he was stuck out of the action taking pot-shots at anything that moved.

They were swapping if it ever happened again, he didn't have the patience for this, nor the calm to deal with Pen slipping away to chase down a wandering feral. Flamethrowers or knives – or both, if it were possible – those were more his style.

Pen's yelp had him flinching, but he kept his stance, kept it for two seconds that felt like two years, and followed the shadow under the bus until yellow eyes came into view.

It wasn't a pretty kill, but then most never were, and he didn't really give a shit as he booked it across the street and down an alleyway, panic tightening every muscle. Pen was a silent killer, she was the sneaky one, the silver tongue, she didn't _make_ noise.

"Fuck me, my blood pressure is the true casualty in this place," Pen muttered from around a corner, and Hancock skidded to a stop to see a dog curled up on the floor, teeth still bared and body riddled with bullet holes. Pen looked at him with a matter-of-fact raised eyebrow. "I'm not eating that; I'll break a tooth."

Hancock huffed a tired laugh, but it died at the sound of footsteps, of feral groans and canine growls. They were in shit cover and stuck in an alleyway, it wasn't the best place they had ever been in, but he still felt that same exhilaration in his veins, that same _excitement._

Pen's fingers twined with his, her grin as wide as his. "Run?"

"Run."

They bolted along the back streets, getting lost once and stopping twice to shoot things with too many teeth. Their breathless laughter bouncing off of the bricks and chasing itself down alleyways, until they burst into the daylight and still heard the echoes behind them.

Pen checked the high windows and Hancock the lowlands off the road, and then they turned to each other, gazes dropping to search for injuries before meeting again, drawn like fireflies to flames, and their smiles matched.

He knew they worried about each other, knew that they probably worried more than most people did – than allies, _friends,_ should – but there was something about _seeing_ it, about seeing her relief and the way she skipped towards him, his arms automatically spreading so she could crash into him.

Pen looked up, blindly helping him nudge the rifle into its holder on his back, her wrists looped about his neck as she stood up on tip-toes to push their foreheads together and laugh, happy and a bit battered and doused in sunshine.

It was too much for him to take, especially with the taste of her still on his tongue. Hancock couldn't help but steal a kiss, and Pen's chin tilted up to meet him, her skin warm and soft against his as he slipped a palm across her cheek, fingers in the soft, knotty mess of her hair.

It was wet.

Hancock drew back with a thrum of concern. "You're bleeding."

"It's just a scratch," she burbled happily, pushing her cheek into his palm like a kitten seeking comfort, uncaring of anything else, and he worried that it was a repeat of earlier, that she would tremble afterwards, that she sought him out for all the wrong reasons.

He would ground her when she needed it, he would hold her close and tell her that everything was okay – shit, but okay – but he refused to take anything she wasn't freely giving, even if those kisses did short-circuit his brain.

"Pen—" Hancock cut himself off at the sound of footsteps, and within a blink he had a throwing knife up and flying from his fingers, Pen's pistol held up alongside his hand. Pen's bullet hit first, but his blade was the fatality, the feral falling before it even stepped out of the alley.

Pen hadn't seen him throw before, hadn't seen him stroke a blade and weigh the hilt, hadn't seen him kill with something a little more intimate than guns, and so now he looked down at her a little nervously.

Pen hummed in interest before she turned to him, and her smile was like dawn sunlight, a soft pinkish glow at the start of a new day, life in all its stunning glory and a voice that said, _hey, you survived._

"I love you."

Hancock's burgeoning grin disappeared, his mouth parting on a breath. "What?"

They both automatically ducked at the far off sound of a gunshot, and Pen suddenly pushed him hard in the chest, forcing him to stumble backwards right as a feral launched itself between them to go sprawling on the tarmac.

Pen took the kill this time, her pistol thudding twice into necrotic flesh, her legs braced and her palms wrapped around the grip. The frown she had focused on the feral disappeared as she looked up at him, an impish smile curling up her cheek. "Do I need to say it again?"

"Yeah," he said immediately, feeling as if he was high, or asleep, or dead – _something_ that should explain words he had never thought he would hear. "'Cause I'm fairly sure I heard you wrong."

Pen dropped her arms with a roll of her eyes, but her smile, and her _walk,_ something between a seductive sway and a sprightly skip, was amused. "I said—"

There was a sudden roar from the reeds, and it was answered with a few canine growls and a thunder of paws. After one brief, vocal glance, they had each clambered up onto whatever was closest, Pen onto an overturned car and Hancock on a waist-high wall.

They both watched the scrub, waiting for whatever it was to burst out, and Hancock couldn't help but let his attention slide surreptitiously to Pen, shock still swirling about his stomach like a damn whirlpool.

Pen's eyes were fixated on the far bank, but she bit her lip a split second before she met his gaze, her smile obvious at having caught him staring, and then her voice rang out over the few metres between them. "I said, I love you."

A yao guai exploded out of the grass, a dog clinging onto its flank and two more nipping at its heels, and Hancock wasn't sure what surprised him more, but he had a feeling it was the delicate dash of murder machine perched on top of a car, and not the fuck off animal that could snap them in two and keep the bones for afters.

"You're tellin' me this now?" Hancock yelled back in disbelief, looking about at the frenzy around them; it wasn't home, it wasn't safe, it was bloody and brutal.

"Where else than where we're in our element?" Pen called back, high and happy, and Hancock realised she was right, realised he had said it himself after so many gunfights. Yes, it was bloody, yes, it was brutal, but so were they, and they liked it. "Besides, I almost didn't, and then I nearly died."

Hancock was across the gap between them in an instant, but all he did was hold out Pen's rifle, his fingers brushing hers before he turned away and took back up on the wall. "Yeah," he called back, skin sparking where they had touched, "I know the feelin'."

Pen had been hefting the stock against her cheek, something adoring in the way she sighted down the scope and fired to the tune of a pained whimper, but then her narrow-eyed gaze jumped to his, the rifle dipping slightly. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Of the three dogs, one was down thanks to Pen, but the shot had attracted attention, and Hancock whistled to get a single mutt racing towards him. He had wrassled with super mutants before, a damn dog was nothing in comparison.

Hancock's laugh was a quick, shotgun blast of a thing, and he managed to turn with the dog's leap, driving his knife through a furred, rangy chest and then spreading his arms wide. "I love you too, kitten."

Pen looked at him, looked at a gallant ghoul who offered it all with a grin like a damn cowboy holding a winning hand and a bloody knife, and couldn't help her smile. "You're telling me this now?"

Hancock shrugged happily, the weight of his bruises seeming like nothing. "I wanted to tell you with pretty words somewhere proper, all that fancy shit you had pre-war, an' – I don't know – do whatever the fuck they did back then," Hancock admitted, and wondered why it felt so much easier to say when they were in the midst of fighting for their lives.

It was as Pen said, this was what they did, this was _normal,_ because they could name each other's scars and they had walked through the fire together.

"I don't want any of that fancy shit, I never did," Pen called, and tossed him her pistol as she darted onto even higher ground, her rifle tucked tight into her shoulder. "I want to kill this fucking bear and then I want you to check out this head wound."

Hancock flashed her a grin even as he flicked the pistol's safety off and unloaded a clip into the yao guai's shoulder, just barely missing the throat. "My job to kiss it better, yeah?"

Pen blew him a kiss from bloodied fingers. "Damn straight."

"Damn straight," he echoed, something so much headier than adrenaline tripping through his system, something that felt like warm rain and gun oil.

The yao guai came down hard on the last dog, falling on it with enough strength to make the ground shudder. It was limping on its left side, its back leg littered with bite marks and its front with bullet wounds.

That wouldn't make it any easier, an injured animal was just a more dangerous one.

Pen gestured wildly over his shoulder, silently telling him to get back on top of the car. "Hey, bear, get over here!"

"Hey, bear?" Hancock repeated under his breath, laughing in quiet confusion as he did as he was told.

"C'mere, bear! C'mere! Oh, you're such an ugly bear, aren't you?" Pen crooned, as if she was calling a dog, and like a damn animal-whisperer, it started lumbering towards her. "Tag!"

Hancock frowned, not understanding the significance of the word until Pen repeated it rather shrilly. "Oh, tag-team," he said with absent-minded satisfaction, and then stamped a foot on the metal roof, the boom reverberating enough to make the yao guai toss its head and roar weakly.

It padded over to him, and Hancock waited, watched two-inch long claws tap closer, waited for heavy, hot breaths to close the gap, and stubbornly stood his ground. When he crossed his arms with a glower, he could faintly hear Pen's amused snort.

Just before the yao guai crossed the point of no return and had a hot ghoul dinner, Pen whistled, high and piercing. Hancock felt a flash of sadness as the majestic beast turned again, its body warped by radiation and its life dictated to by other predators.

He knew a bit about that.

Pen was crouched now, one knee on the car roof to brace the rifle's kickback. Still bloodied, still bruised, and still bewildering the shit out of him, Pen laid a cartridge directly between dulled, angry eyes.

The crack of the shot echoed around them, and Hancock wondered if the silence should have been awkward after what they had said, after the adrenaline wore off, after it was just words instead of actions again.

Instead, he walked over as Pen reloaded her rifle, and helped her down as he always did, her hand fitting neatly into his as they stood over the fallen yao guai.

Hancock heaved a breath, ears still ringing – not from gunfire, but from words shouted over them. "I'm guessin' they didn't sacrifice stuff on a first date back then, huh?"

"No, unfortunately." Pen glanced at him sidelong, nudging the bear with a toe even as she offered a little sheepishly, "Besides, I think we're past our first date."

Hancock had to acknowledge that one. Half a dozen close calls, a hundred hand-holds, and the thousand times he had looked at her. Yeah, they were past all that.

Surprisingly, to think it was a relief, because it wasn't about that, it wasn't about pre-war rituals and a film at the drive-in, it was about him, and her, shooting shit and surviving.

"We'll have to step our game up then," he said finally, his laughter drawing Pen against his side. "Deathclaw?"

Pen turned to face him, peeking from under her lashes and her free hand toying with the lapels of his duster. "Don't get ahead of yourself."

Encouraged by the contact, Hancock slipped his fingers along her cheek again, wiping away dirt but accidentally smearing blood in its place, and thought Pen was fine art; the canvas preserved and the frame a little burned, but all of it perfectly Pen.

"I still don't know what I'm fuckin' doing," he admitted hoarsely, "but I wanna try."

"So do I," Pen replied quietly, confidence and contentment in her smile. "I know I trust you at my back, though, and I still think you're a hero."

Hancock started to grin, felt it tug irrepressibly when it felt _right,_ felt like actions rather than words, because that was who he was, and he knew about those, and he knew Pen. "I know you came outta that fire like a fucking phoenix, and you can talk your way outta anythin'."

Pen beamed, and he loved that he had caused it, loved _her_ – and had never thought he would say so, until now, until a kitten in sunglasses had shown up in his town and clawed the Commonwealth wide open.

He saw his own wonderment reflected in Pen's eyes, heard that same delighted disbelief in her voice, as if neither of them had expected this to happen, but they were going to grasp it with both hands and some teeth anyway. "I know you like being on the road but you miss Goodneighbor, and so do I."

Hancock ducked his head to chuckle, pleased that she knew him so well. He liked the road because it meant action, meant adrenaline and ecstasy, meant they were together, because Pen was in her element there.

That wouldn't change, and he didn't want it to, because Pen wouldn't be Pen without dirt on her cheeks and a new settlement under her belt, and he loved her for that.

He would be there for when she came home, bitching about injuries and raiders and tilting her chin up for a kiss just as she was doing right now.

It was with a great force of will that he held back to say softly, "I know I'll wait when you're off bein' a hero."

Pen's mouth made a little ticking noise as it parted in surprise, but then it was pushed against his, her kiss glad and grateful and her fingers tight and tantalising on the frilled collar of his shirt. "I know I'll always come back to mine."

It was the final click, the cocking of a rifle, the thrum of a generator, the sun cresting the horizon, and he decided that, actually, he didn't fucking care if he grinned like an idiot, because hot damn he liked the sound of that. "Yours?"

Pen was up on her tip-toes now, her laugh lost in another kiss, and the way she sighed his name was like the sweetest huff of Jet. Hancock moved his thumb to her jaw and she angled with it, baring the impossibly delicate line of her throat for his fingers to span, for his brain to make another very detailed mental note of the noise she made when he brushed calloused fingertips over her jugular.

Pen leaned into him, and with both hands now at his chest, he could slide a palm to her hip, nudging just under cotton shirt to feel the smooth skin beneath. Pen's breathing hitched pretty damn beautifully, so Hancock pushed a little harder, squeezed a little tighter, and Pen shivered under his touch, darkened blue eyes opening only to scowl at his satisfied smirk.

Pen liked his hands, Hancock remembered.

Short nails bit into the bare skin at his chest and blunt teeth nipped at his lip, and Hancock's groan was low and completely involuntary. It should have been his turn to scowl, but Pen was pulling him closer, using the distraction to lick into his mouth and smile when he tensed.

Pen had been hesitant at first, mildly concerned with what an irradiated ghoul might taste like, might _feel_ like, but the hand on her hip and the breathless grin she had felt against her lips answered for her. Hancock's skin was rougher than hers, but no harsher than five o'clock shadow, and Pen had been…

Okay, she had been curious, but nobody with a grin, with a _gait,_ like his had any right to be surprised. Hancock was what Pen had always thought him, a rebel with a cause, and damn it all if she hadn't fallen as hard as a kid with a poster up on the walls.

It was Hancock, he'd have to be in his tricorne, complete with the words _**wants you**_ in big, commanding letters.

It wasn't quite as patriotic as it should be, but then _God save the King, Hancock, and St George_ did have a nice ring to it, too.

A roughened thumb pressed into the soft flesh under her jaw, and she practically sank against him, marvelling at the taste of whiskey on a tongue that had never tried it, not properly, not _scotch,_ not a whiskey distilled ever so specially on her little island _._ Hancock tasted as smoky sweet as he smelled, but this was the sweetness of oak and the smokiness of peat, not Mentats and shotgun shells.

Hancock tasted like _home._

"You know," Pen murmured, seeming loathe to actually stop kissing him – and Hancock was pretty damn agreeable with that line of thought, actually. "This is so much easier without another nose in the way."

Hancock paused, blinked, and burst out laughing.

Pen snickered, her arms moving to curl about his neck, anchoring herself close. "We should probably find some cover before we do something really unheroic, like get killed."

"Never thought _you'd_ be the one sayin' we need cover," Hancock sighed, but he couldn't keep a straight face, not when Pen put on a scowl that disappeared with another kiss.

It was another addiction to add to the list, and he had a feeling Pen signed her name pretty damn happily.

Pen took her time in letting him go, but one arm trailed down his until their hands were tangled together again, pulling him away from her hip and off towards home, towards Goodneighbor.

Hancock cleared his throat when he thought of what he would find there. "Y'know Fahr's gonna be pissed."

"She really is, she had 500 caps on you crumbling first," Pen announced, and threw him a sparkling grin when he stopped dead in the road. "I heard her bargaining with Kelvin before we left."

Hancock started laughing, burying his face in Pen's hair when she settled against his chest with a contented sigh, the pair of them giving up any pretence that they wanted to be anywhere other than together right now. "Oh man, that's not gonna be fun."

"We can say you said it first if you want."

Hancock leaned back so he could look down at her, mock disbelief in his tone. "What, an' not brag about the Minutemen General tellin' me she loves me?"

Pen flushed hotly, the first one he had seen in a while, but she managed to give him an arch look anyway. "I'm pre-war, it's expected of me to be a sappy shit."

"You callin' me a sappy shit?"

Pen saw right through his raised brow and beamed happily at him. "The sappiest."

"Only with you, kitten," he admitted, giving into a grin, having to laugh when he thought of how he was never going to live this down.

But then he rather liked the thought of living with it, with _her,_ for every shot along the way. They had come out of that fire together, bloodied and bruised but not beaten, and they walked home under a burned blue sky hand-in-hand.

"Pen?" Hancock asked after a few minutes of comfortable silence, minutes of Hancock smiling at nothing and Pen nibbling happily at her lip.

"Mm?"

"What the fuck is a bear?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I play the _"well, there we go"_ card again, will I find one of you at my front door tomorrow, a pitchfork in one hand and a laptop in the other? I mean, we haven't even whacked this baby up to a tasty E-rating yet, and what's a slow burn without some fire? Fahrenheit isn't done being ~~amused~~ disgusted by Hancock teaching Pen how to "wrestle", and there's rumours of a rebellion in the Railroad. What do you think, darling commenters, would you like more?
> 
> Of course, then there's MacCready's little crush on a mercenary way too tough for him… **BRIEF ANNOUNCEMENT:** Anyone who loves that little boy blue and ships him with a F!OC, want to chat headcanon with me and read through my first chapter? I need to get psyched about it and I'm having trouble. As always, find me here and on [Tumblr](http://comehitherashes.tumblr.com)!


	12. Steel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while, I know, but life had me by the short and curlies so I had to take a little hiatus. Still, I come bearing caffeinated gifts and a new storyline no less! For those of you who commented, thank you, you are the best. Enjoy a little DiaD ficlet in the form of [one of Fahrenheit's bets](http://comehitherashes.tumblr.com/post/148947482013/thank-you-fic-to-all-of-the-lovely-people-who) (mentioned in this chapter). 
> 
> I promised you guns, ghouls, and a grimdark sequel... Instead I give you those first two things and _"Apocalypse in an Ascot."_ Some of the ghouls are even naked, the guns too!

> Into the night as the stars collide,  
>  Across the borders that divide  
>  Forests of stone standing petrified,  
>  To be by your side.
> 
> For I know just one thing,  
>  Love comes on a wing  
>  For tonight I will be by your side.  
>  But tomorrow I will fly away.
> 
> \- Nick Cave, _'To Be By Your Side'_

Pen slept on sun-warmed rock, a broad slab of stone that lifted her out of an irradiated sea. It felt safe here, safe in a soft breeze that whispered through her hair, a breeze that sometimes broke off to chuckle disbelievingly.

Rocks didn't normally breathe.

Pen woke up with calloused fingers massaging her scalp; in fact, she woke up to find that she had crawled half on top of a shirtless, very smug-looking ghoul.

"Mornin'."

Pen laughed sleepily, and Hancock gave her a surprised grin when she settled right back against him again. There was no time for shyness, no time to worry about what it might mean, what might follow, what might not. Pen had the knowledge like a warmth in her bones: there was nowhere else she wanted to be.

The muscled arm looped over her shoulders told her that he rather agreed.

They had only been back in Goodneighbor for a few hours, Hancock having led her to one of the backdoor routes to the State House after their happy dawdling home. Pen had wearily suggested some shut eye, and Hancock had bribed the guard at the door to keep quiet about their arrival.

It was a sweet gesture. The moment they knew their mayor was back, everyone would fall on him, and Pen didn't really want to let go of his hand just yet.

Just for now, it was nice to be a little selfish.

"Good nap?"

Pen hummed an agreement and hooked her knee over leather-clad thighs. "I had the weirdest dream."

"Yeah?" Hancock pulled her closer as if worried they had been nightmares, so she rested her chin on his sternum and looked up at him.

"Yeah, this handsome ghoul stabbed a dog and then told me he loved me."

Jet grey eyes blinked, blinked again, and then a smile crept across his face, the faintest flush spreading across scarred cheeks like dawn on a desert. It made a nice change for him to be the one on the back foot.

"Funny," he finally replied, voice a pleased scrape, "I had somethin' similar."

"What, a handsome ghoul told you he loved you?"

Hancock snorted, tugging slightly on her hair in reprimand. It should have just been that, a little tug, a little tease, but she shivered, and a part of her wondered if the hare shivered in the fox's jaws. Hancock raised a brow, his smile gaining some teeth as he tugged again. It was as if it tightened a ribbon all the way down her spine, and its frayed end was knotted around something that made her breath catch.

"Oh, Pen," Hancock rasped wonderingly, as if he had just been given a present and was _really_ looking forward to unwrapping it.

Forget ribbons, one of those mayoral sashes would seriously make his day.

Pen expected time to slow down, it felt like it should when those gold sparks seemed to leap in dark depths, seemed to whisper _jump, kitten,_ but instead, everything sped up, time, her pulse, her breathing, and the footsteps that raced down the stairs along with Delisle and Newton's high-pitched laughter.

The burned world intervened, as it always did.

With Hancock's attention now on the door, Pen stretched, shifting uncomfortably when her shirt twisted about her chest – even if Hancock did use it as an excuse to brush a hand over her bared hip. "Time to face the world, Mayor."

Hancock fell back against the bed with a sigh, his other hand dragging down his face as if he carried the world's ills. "Hearin' you call me that ain't as good as it should be."

Pen gave him a lopsided smile, empathising with that odd disconnect between life and label, between _of the people_ and _for the people._ There was a time and a place where titles worked, where it felt _right,_ but Pen had always felt hers was a misnomer.

It suited Hancock, he had earned his, but that still wasn't who he was to her.

"Time to face the world," she said again, but now she smiled. "Rascal."

Hancock laughed softly, pulling her closer in a one-armed hug. "That's better."

It was Pen who moved first, clambering over his legs and laughing when she tangled him up in the sheets she had thrown off as they napped, content to snuggle closer to him instead.

"That's what you get for sleeping closest to the door," she teased, turning away to fetch all the bits and pieces she had thrown across Hancock's room at the heady sight of an actual bed

"S'worth it though," Hancock sighed, this one sounding a little longing, but when all Pen had to do was reattach her holsters, he swung out of bed and set about getting ready.

Pen slid her pistol from under a pillow and watched Hancock dress from out of the corner of her eye, a fresh shirt dragged from a battered bureau, fingers that had just been teasing her skin now briskly fastening buttons amidst frills.

He was caught up in it, thoughts elsewhere as he lifted his hat from the bedpost and slipped it on his head, the flag he used for his belt slung about his shoulders. He faltered when he turned around to see her smiling softly at him.

"What?"

Pen nibbled a lip, unsure how to describe the happy contentment that had settled in her stomach, a warmth that had sunk into her skin from his fingers, a heat that burned away memories of ice.

She stepped closer, eyes lifting to look at his tricorne and then back to him, smile widening as she tucked the flag about his neck like a cravat. "There you are."

It should have been an odd thing to say, it wasn't as if they hadn't been plastered together since waking up after the raider fires, it wasn't even as if the hat made the man – nor the tricorne the ghoul – and yet something about him kept hitting her anew.

The roguish grin was only a part of it, and the rest was the hand that settled at her waist and the calloused hand that cupped her jaw, the confidence he had in himself, in her, in them both. The ghoul mayor with a drink in one hand and a shotgun in the other, _of the people, for the people._

The necktie suited him.

"For luck?"

Pen would have kissed him anyway, but she paused just before they touched, smiling at the anticipatory breath that left his mouth. "I thought you made your own luck?"

Hancock laughed softly, closing the distance between them for the time it took one of Pen's hands to slide up his chest and curl into his shirt. It was instinctive to roll up onto her toes, but the rest of it, the rest of _him,_ the rough skin, the smoky sweetness, _the lack of a nose_ , that was all new.

New, the same way life after an apocalypse was new; if an apocalypse could gently brush her hair back with hands that had spanned necks and gun grips alike, an apocalypse that brought about the end of the world in flame and fire, and something new stepped from the ash.

It was death, and yet life survived, much like a ghoul in an arid desert, or even a human in a cryo pod.

Hancock stood on the weathered floorboards of the State House like a captain aboard his ship, not a sailor born to sail, nor a pirate to pillage, but a gentleman who turned from his king to claim his own little bit of the sea.

An apocalypse in an ascot.

"I do make my own luck, I have my charms," he rasped into the kiss, and she should have known from his smile that he was up to mischief. "My lucky penny."

Pen snorted against his lips and punched him in the chest.

Hancock laughed delightedly, the sound nearly sending Kelvin head-first down the stairs when he saw them leaving Hancock's room, lit cigarette falling out of his mouth. "Shit, boss, when'd you get back?"

Hancock clasped Kelvin's forearm, red duster against battered brown leather. "Only a couple of hours ago, just needed to wash the dust off first."

Pen deliberately took a look down at her distinctly dusty self, and Hancock gave her a smirk that seemed to promise a pretty personal wash later on.

It was unsurprisingly difficult to meet Kelvin's eye after that, and Pen focused on the floor and not the ghoul she had spent the last few hours napping on, his treacherous fingers in her _hair_ —

Kelvin, having been plied with another cigarette to keep his trap shut, pointed them upstairs, but paused to give Pen a nod and a quiet, _glad you're both back._

Hancock gave her a conspiratorial look, and Pen ducked her head to laugh in surprise. It was nice to hear, probably nicer than it should be when she had Sanctuary to get back to, but it was hard not to like – even if Kelvin was only pleased because Fahrenheit had been raining terror on everyone without Hancock as their buffer.

They were a good bunch, and they were Hancock's, his people, and he was theirs.

He _fit_ here, this was his home.

Pen could hear Fahrenheit cussing something out on the next floor up, and stepped aside to let Hancock burst through the door, his expression entirely neutral as he strolled into the room and spied Fahrenheit taking notes on a clipboard. Fahrenheit barely looked up, as if nothing ever surprised her anymore. "Oh, it's you."

"Good to see you too, Fahr," Hancock drawled, spreading his hands dramatically, but wisely didn't comment on the strange colour of Fahrenheit's hair – strange because it looked like a natural reddish-blonde rather than its usual rust-orange.

"You're late."

Pen smiled as they started bickering – if you could call their swear-laced words bickering – but then that was what they did. They might not admit it, but they worried about each other, and this was their way of checking everything was okay, this was assuring the other they were fine.

"I heard Stockton's happy," Fahrenheit announced, and Pen wondered who had brought that tasty bit of information so very quickly after the fact.

At least it meant that Amelia got home safe.

Hancock shrugged, confident and cocky. "When've I not got a job done?"

Fahrenheit pointed at a hole in the floor a foot to Hancock's left. "You were meant to get that fixed months ago."

Hancock stared at it, and then put a chair over the top. "Done."

Fahrenheit stared at him just as he had stared at the hole, as if he a were an irritation she wanted gone – or maybe she just wanted to throw a chair at him too. "If someone falls through that, you're dealing with it."

"I always deal with it."

"The only thing you deal with is cards and chems."

At her sly little jab, Hancock perked up. "Speakin' of, you find anyone to take over from Marowski?"

"I reckon one of Stockton's will show up any day now," Fahrenheit answered seriously. The tone had changed, they were talking business – for the few seconds it lasted.

"What're the rates for today?"

"You still owe me from last time," Fahrenheit said, brow raised and gaze deliberately slipping to Pen, which had Hancock stiffening awkwardly for some reason, the finger he pointed at Fahrenheit pissed off and threatening.

"Fuck you, an' your hair looks shit."

"Says the guy with the fucking pirate hat."

As always, their happy little chats ended with Hancock throwing up his hands and storming out the room. Fahrenheit's attention immediately switched to Pen, who simply shrugged. "He missed you."

A reluctant smile twitched at Fahrenheit's lips. "It gets so fucking dull without him here to piss off."

Pen gave a soft laugh and nodded. "Literally the only reason I brought him back safely."

"All right, damsel, you're not that funny," Fahrenheit replied, but it was belied by the amusement in her eyes, eyes that narrowed as soon as Hancock strode back into the room as if he had forgotten something.

Fingers twined with Pen's as Hancock pointedly stared Fahrenheit down, daring her to say something, but when the pair of them simply glared at each other for five seconds, Pen sighed and dragged Hancock out of the room.

"She missed you," Pen whispered as they walked downstairs again, and stopped on the empty landing to see Hancock's happy grin, the pair of them so very alike with their fighting masking deep-rooted affection.

"She gets bored when I'm not here to piss her off," Hancock explained, and laughed in surprise when Pen decided to crash into his chest.

Pen hid her smile in Hancock's neck, and felt like she fit there.

It felt like home.

 

* * *

 

Pen dropped by Daisy's with a pair of Nuka Colas in hand, getting a bruising hug and a careful once-over for her efforts. When the sun decided to show itself, they sat on the bench outside her shop, Pen making enquiries into new shotguns and Daisy calling it in an _engagement present_.

Pen snorted in surprise, having half-expected terms like that to have disappeared after all of this time. It wasn't as if marriage licences existed anymore – although she wouldn't put it past Daisy to say that she used to be a registrar.

"You know, there are some things I'm glad are lost to time," Pen replied, sipping from her bottle and relishing the lack of shackles, the lack of pomp and fanfare that used to come with every little thing before the war.

Daisy snorted, face turning into the sunshine. "You say that now, you'll start to miss the parties."

Pen wrinkled her nose, fingers going to the dog tags about her wrist and remembering her brother's wedding, remembered being annoyed that it wasn't _customary_ for the sister of the groom to give a speech. "I only liked parties for the alcohol, and that at least didn't go up in smoke."

"I'm not just talkin' about the big occasions – although I have a great idea for a hat if you ever decide to take the plunge, doll," Daisy interrupted herself, elbowing Pen in the ribs until she laughed. Daisy swayed from the gentle shove, her cackle loud even in the bustle of Goodneighbor's afternoon. "Hancock throws a little bash every time a scavenging party comes back safe, whenever there's a new deal made or we vaguely get somebody's birthday right. He likes to make a scene, does our mayor."

Pen knew her smile was a little too fond when Daisy chuckled at it. "You're telling me."

"You gotta get used to celebratin' _something,_ or the days pass by an' all you remember is the shit," Daisy explained, shrug casual. "Besides, it does everyone good to see Hancock happy."

Pen had a slight suspicion that Daisy wasn't talking about the parties anymore, but before she could question it, a trader caravan was called up at the front gate. Delisle, who had been cleaning her gun with the guards, peered over the wall and then dashed off into the State House.

Pen watched her go and peered at the newcomers, having no idea who they were until Daisy murmured, "Shit, what did you two do to get Stockton's trade?"

Pen was about to answer, and then she narrowed her eyes. "Don't pretend you don't know."

Daisy's chuckle was rasping. "Aw, you were gonna tell me, weren't you?"

Pen smiled wryly, reminding herself that Daisy was as sneaky as she was long-lived. All she needed were some secret agents and she could sit at the head of an intelligence agency, a cocky 007 at her behest.

Speaking of arrogance with baby blue eyes. "How's MacCready?"

"Hard to say," Daisy murmured, half of her attention on the conversation across the open space. "His chicky was here."

Pen was about to complain about always missing the fabled merc MacCready spent all his time grumbling about, but then Hancock stepped out with Fahrenheit, his face lighting up when he saw the man at the head of the group.

"Lucas," Daisy supplied quietly, smiling absent-mindedly when Pen murmured her gratitude. "He used to hang around here a lot before he fell in with Stockton."

"Is that why Hancock's pleased to see him?" Pen asked, watching Hancock ask a question, only to be asked one in return as Lucas briefly glanced over Hancock's shoulder at her.

"I'm not sure," Daisy answered, and then scooted her off the bench. "Go find out and report back."

Pen aimed a laugh over her shoulder, already halfway out of her chair at the sight of Hancock, a determined little urge in her gut to be near him. As she approached, she saw Lucas shake his head and faintly heard, "For you, Stockton wants the best."

Hancock sighed, but he nodded in grudging acceptance, waving the rest of Lucas' group in as she slid into place beside him.

Pen couldn't quite hide her smile when Hancock subconsciously slipped a hand to her waist. "You get special treatment now?"

"Apparently," he murmured, somewhat disappointed, but when she made an inquiring noise, he didn't explain. Instead, he suddenly looked down at her, and she was immediately distrustful of the growing glee in his eyes. "So!"

"So?"

Hancock let her go to clap his hands together, palms rubbing in anticipatory excitement. "Think it's time you learned how to fight."

"I can fight," she defended hotly, rearing up in affront. "I have guns."

"Not that sort of fightin', kitten. I'm talkin' about when the guns get taken, when it's just you an' your claws."

Pen leaned into a hip, brow raising stubbornly. "You don't think I can defend myself?"

"No offence," he started placatingly, as if he was going to feed her some sugar-coated line about how vulnerable she was, but then simply said, "No."

"You bastard," she said, laughing disbelievingly, and his grin was a happy one.

"Hey, prove me wrong, kitten."

"Yeah, sure, nice try." Pen tried to walk back to Daisy's, but a rather handsome and interfering ghoul stood in her way.

"You ain't gettin' past me," Hancock teased, resettling his weight in case she tried anything, and Pen wondered if this was how sailors felt when pirates boarded their ships, when the only way out was past the most dangerous thing in their swiftly shrinking world.

When that very world revolved around it.

Pen huffed a sigh, smile at her lips even as she tried to frown, tried to insist that this was needless, that she could handle herself, thank you very much – cutlass-wielding captains aside.

"C'mon," he added, sweet-talking at its finest and an upturned palm that seemed to offer everything. "For me?"

" _Rascal,_ " Pen groaned in amused reluctance, and from the way sunny surprise lit Hancock's face, it was clear he was slowly realising just how charming he was.

Or, more accurately, just how absolutely fucked she was when it came to him.

With a sigh that was more at her own expense than anything else, Pen took his hand and called out, "Daisy, if I'm not back in an hour, send out a search party. I've been kidnapped."

"Yeah, you look really against it," Daisy called back, gaze drifting between their clasped hands and Pen's smile.

It wasn't quite as pleased as Hancock's, who all but swaggered as he led her off to some sunlit sidestreet where they wouldn't be bothered, his parting comment to Daisy about letting her deal with Lucas gave her that bottle-cap gleam in her eye as she set off to find him.

"Should keep her busy for a while," Hancock murmured conspiratorially, and took off his duster only to throw it over an unlit barrel. "We'll start without the knife, don't wanna end up shanked."

Pen pinpointed the moment she had stopped paying attention to what he was saying to about five seconds ago, sometime around the loss of duster and the rolling up of sleeves.

It was cheating, really, but then she expected Hancock to play dirty.

Oh, there went her thoughts again.

Pen forced herself to blink, to look away, and wound up looking at her own clothes. "Should I practice in something else?"

Hancock's brow furrowed, but he placed her pistol on his duster when she passed it over. "Why? You're only gonna get jumped in these."

It was a good point, but she couldn't resist raising a brow. "I'm not sure," she demurred, "with you around, who can tell."

Hancock slid her a grin as he placed his tricorne on top of her gun. "Is that a reference to me bein' a magnet for trouble?"

"No, it's a reference for you _being_ trouble," she replied, smile wide as she tied her hair up into a messy tail and couldn't quite catch her breath when Hancock's rasping laugh sounded so very rakish.

"Oh, kitten," he murmured, jet-grey eyes lidded and smirk full of promises, "you don't even know the half of it yet."

It shouldn't have been so attractive, not when it felt like that captain's cutlass pressed a cold line against her throat and a burning one against her spine.

This was dangerous territory, this was _uncharted_ territory, this wasn't just taking a step into the darkness or into the abyss, this was plotting a course right off the edge of the map and raising a weapon of her own, this was a _choice._

Pen stared at death, and she wanted to jump it.

"Ready?" Hancock asked, and Pen whispered a reply to a hundred different things that had sat quietly in her head all this time and now clamoured for attention, for more, _for Hancock_.

"Yes."

Hancock launched without any preamble, and Pen scrambled backwards in surprise, barely keeping her footing as she dodged his outstretched arm, barely keeping her cool when she realised she was really in far above her fucking head here.

And she didn't just mean about the spar.

It was all very well and good to want to tackle death to the ground, it was another kettle of fish to actually manage it _and_ come out unchanged on the other side.

Hancock forced her to move, to duck, to run from his steady onslaught, to run from the ghoul she wanted to run _to._

So she did. When he expected her to shy away again, she side-stepped and shoved, her palm tingling with the force behind it and her fingers catching against the rolled up sleeve of his shirt. Hancock paused for maybe half a second, and then his grin was equal parts pleased and predatory.

Which, really, didn't help with getting her mind in the game.

This wasn't natural for her but she wasn't totally inexperienced, she _had_ taken a few self-defence classes in her time, and it wasn't as if the slight muscle she had built in the Commonwealth was going to waste. She just didn't chime with the whole _punch someone until they bled_ thing, she liked the measure of distance a gun afforded.

Pen smacked his hand away when he almost caught her, but it was too careful, too light, and he scowled at her for it. "Fight properly, I ain't made of glass, kitten."

 _I don't do properly,_ she wanted to reply, but it was hard enough dancing around the street and staying a skip ahead of him without throwing actual talking into the mix too. "I don't _do—_ "

Hancock grabbed her immediately, a tut at the end of his tongue, so she scratched him, hard, and he yelped in surprise and shuffled back a step.

"You said I had to fight properly," she panted, trying to sound snarky even as she tried to catch her breath, Hancock examining his hand in some sort of shock.

"You made me bleed!"

Pen immediately stopped, guilt and concerned frown on her brow. "Oh, shit, are you okay—?"

Hancock leapt at her, pulling her slightly off-balance and his hands locking tightly around hers. When she winced at her bruised wrist, she appreciated it when he simply rearranged his grip further away from the pain rather than letting her go.

She didn't need to be coddled, but she did enjoy letting him hold her upright.

"You sneaky bastard!"

"Rule number one, kitten, don't let your guard down," he rasped against her ear, joy evident in every damn word, so she hooked a foot around his calf and forced them backwards.

Hancock must have been expecting it, but his reflexes were too fast for her anyway when they were this close, and he angled them until he hit the ground first and her shoulder simply thudded against his chest, hair escaping its knot to fall around his ridiculously wide grin.

"Nice try," he murmured, far too satisfied considering he had a back full of tarmac.

He still had her forearms, so she elbowed him – still somewhat gently – in the stomach and complained, "You know what I'm going to do before I do it!"

"I can read you, kitten, you're all tells," Hancock explained, and when she waited for him to be halfway through a word before she tried to tear away, he rolled them without pausing his sentence, his grin pressed tight to the sensitive skin behind her ear as she tried not to taste the floor. "Your muscles give you away, you tense way too early."

"Forgive me for not being a fucking ninja," she muttered, starting to get grumpy at being foiled so easily. This was why she liked guns, there was no need for any of this shit with tells – at least with poker she had a fighting chance, although she would keep an eye out for any of Hancock's tricks.

It was hard to be completely angry when Hancock was so clearly enjoying himself – even if it did irritate her a little when it was at her expense – but if she was in her element on the road with a rifle in her hand, Hancock was in his when it was close quarters and kitted out in knives.

_Knives._

Pen jack-knifed, freeing one hand to scrabble for his boot, her fingers grasping a worn hilt that slid ever so nicely from its sheathe.

It was almost as nice as Hancock freezing, all that warm muscle suddenly tensing around her as he waited for her to bring the blade up alongside them – she still kept it a safe distance away, no matter the name of the game.

"You got it?"

Pen nodded, confused, and squeaked when he rolled them again, this time with her straddling him, his hands steadying her hips as she tried not to use the knife to brace somewhere really inopportune – like his chest cavity.

It took a moment to realise his gaze was trailing slowly down her body, lingering at her spread thighs and clasped fingers before coming up again with a slow, languorous grin.

Pen raised a brow. "Are you sure this is just for my benefit?"

His laugh was roguish and his fingers warm through the denim of her jeans. "Oh, this is definitely for my benefit, kitten, just so happens it'll benefit you too."

"We're still talking about the training, right?"

"Right," he agreed, completely insincere, but his attention was fixated on the way she held the knife, the way she brushed the pad of her finger on the sharp edge.

If he'd had pupils, they would have been so very wide right now, but instead the sunlight seemed to make the gold sparks jump amidst the grey, fascination written in every muscle.

Pen hummed interestedly, again when she felt his grip tighten on her thighs. "Does this really do it for you?"

His smile dimmed a little. "Yeah, is that weird?"

"Yes," she said sombrely, and added in a whisper, "Will you throw it for me?"

It took a second for Hancock to realise what she had said, but his growing grin turned sly. "Do it for you too, huh?"

"Just a little," she admitted coyly, and had to laugh when she realised she had fallen for a ghoul long before she had even learned to wield a knife in a world famed for them.

She might as well _write_ that Sunday Times number 1 bestseller herself now, she clearly had her priorities straight, and said ghoul underneath her seemed very happy to give some character references.

"Well, in fairness," he murmured, "I could watch you palm that rifle all day long."

Pen vainly tried to smother a smile. _"All_ day long?"

"Hey," he said insistently, grin lewd, "I don't make promises I can't keep, just gotta get you another hat an' I'm game for the rest."

Before she could get entirely derailed by that thought – _oh, too late, there's been a crash on the motorway and the cars are piling up_ – Pen arched a brow and pointed the blade at him. "I've told you before, there is only _the_ hat, I won't settle for less."

Hancock did not even bother trying to smother _his_ smile now that their roles had been reversed. " _Only_ the hat?"

Pen finally flushed, and Hancock's laugh was entirely too satisfied, so she threw caution to the wind, just as she had thrown in her lot with a pirate who had sailed these seas far more than she had.

Yes, these were uncharted waters, but she would draw the map.

"The hat, and the gun," Pen added quietly, and had her own satisfaction in seeing Hancock's smile fade into something deeper. There was a roiling in those jet-grey eyes that felt like turbulence, felt like hot water and hotter hands, and then it passed in a forced blink and a clearing of irradiated throat.

"This ain't a throwin' knife," Hancock said, voice far huskier than usual as he tapped the knife's edge, "it's weighted all wrong."

Feeling as if she had just been tossed overboard and didn't know which way was up, Pen huffed disappointedly, and in the space between one breath and the next, Hancock had fished a smaller, slimmer blade from somewhere within his belt. "This one's for throwin'."

"Where did you…?"

"You can go huntin' for 'em later," Hancock assured, his wink lecherous enough to make her laugh, to make her lean back a little and raise an expectant brow that said, _well go on then._

Hancock's smile curled at one corner, and then his tongue caught thoughtfully between his teeth, his gaze focused on a target to the side, his entire body loosening underneath her in one careful breath.

Pen didn't look away, couldn't, not when stillness settled about them both like the eye of a hurricane, that same stillness that settled around her before she took a shot, the same one that rugby players had before a kick or tennis players before a serve, but this was different.

The others were the stillness of quiet, calm, of placid lakes and gentle winds, but Hancock's was more of a pause, the pause of a predator before it pounced, Hancock was a rad storm in a bottle, contained for a brief second before bursting outwards.

It was brutally beautiful, the throw a sudden jerk of movement and a flash of teeth that didn't go away.

"You're meant to be lookin' at the target, kitten."

"I know," she replied easily, and found the way his smile grew so very fascinating.

There was a slam of a door being opened around the corner, and then feet that stamped down the street.

"John!" Fahrenheit growled, a different sort of storm crackling in her words, this one of fire and fear rather than roars and radiation. "Did you just throw that fucking knife at my windowsill?"

Pen rolled her eyes and laughed at Hancock's lazy grin.

 

* * *

 

Pen called it a field trip.

They were on their way north, just to the river and out of the ruins, Hancock using a scavenging run as cover for staying with Pen as long as possible.

Well, _he_ was, Fahrenheit and Daisy were very clearly scavenging, and even Pen dropped his hand sometimes to go skipping after the pair of them once they had broken a door down.

They had left Kelvin in the hot seat, Kelvin who had magicked a wide-brimmed hat out of nowhere and nodded gravely – the ridiculous feather in the band had nodded gravely too – but a host of others had spotted them leaving and joined in on the escort.

The laughter was loud, the guns were plenty, and cigarettes were shared.

Field trip.

Pen gravitated back to his side again, fingernail pinging against a fuse she had found and her hum a happy one. It was a sight different from the hum she had given him this morning, heavily hungover and burrowing against his chest as if it was all his fault.

It was, he had been buying the drinks.

It was worth it just to see Pen drunkenly balancing on Daisy's shoulders so that they could try and straighten an askew sign on Third Rail's wall, and worth it again when she tumbled into his arms at the bar and proudly exclaimed that she had fixed it.

Only to find she had absently brought it down with her.

He had laughed into her hair, promising her that he would lift her up if she wanted, and she had burbled joyfully against his neck. It had earned them a few looks before Magnolia cleared her throat to draw their attention, but the looks had been pleased, amused.

Hancock had held Pen against his chest as Magnolia sang, Pen murmuring along and swaying slightly, and he had realised they were happy for him.

Goodneighbor was for the people, and they were for him.

Some of those people were laughing now as Daisy pounced on a diner with freshly boarded up windows, Pen following after with her pistol raised and loudly claiming anything with copper.

"Finder's keepers, doll," Daisy called over Newton's victory dance at finding some Mentats.

"I found you," Pen shot back, on her tip toes as she rifled through a cupboard. "Does that mean I can keep you?"

"I ain't a kept woman," Daisy chuckled, but tossed a lightbulb Pen's way just as Pen held out a stopwatch. "You've got yourself a deal."

Their laughter trickled out through the door, and Hancock caught the half-blister pack that Newton threw him with a smile, one that probably looked really ridiculous. He didn't care, he was happy; he was a little hungover, but he was happy.

He would have to start counting the weeks for Pen soon, the days, the hours, the minutes, but for now they rarely left each other's side for more than a few seconds, one of them always finding their way back to the other like heat-seeking missiles.

Pen rather literally, in his case.

It was both easier and harder to part ways after the things they had said. Easier because he carried the words, the smiles, the sight of her atop an overturned car with a rifle in her arms, it was easier because he knew she would find her way back to him.

It was harder because it fucking hurt, and if he was going to be really pathetically poetic about it, it felt like Pen had hooked her claws in his irradiated heart and the pain was damn sweet.

He couldn't believe himself, sometimes.

"I can't believe you, sometimes," Fahrenheit announced in his ear, startling him from his reverie where he had been watching Pen offer Delisle a sip of her water and getting a small, grateful smile in return.

"Yeah," Hancock sighed, and knew it sounded stupidly content when Fahrenheit rolled her eyes, "you an' me both, sister."

Fahrenheit followed his gaze and then snatched a Mentat whilst he was distracted. "You're not gonna get all lovesick brahmin calf again, are you? I'd hate to shoot you."

Hancock raised a brow and popped a pill of his own. "No you wouldn't."

"No, you're right, I wouldn't," she agreed sombrely, but he saw that little tell-tale twitch in her cheek when he smirked.

"It's different now," he admitted, and Fahrenheit narrowed her eyes at him, her expression suddenly turning suspicious.

"Ah, fuck. You told her you loved her, didn't you? You sack of romantic shit."

Hancock started to laugh, his palm dragging down his face as he nodded. "Yeah," he chuckled tiredly, and then offered her an unapologetic shrug. "We'd just killed a yao guai, it seemed natural."

"Natural," Fahrenheit echoed sceptically, "this the pre-war damsel we're talking about here?"

Hancock chuckled, his eyes locked on a slim figure with scars on her cheeks and a gun in her hands. "She's not that anymore."

Fahrenheit snorted, resettling her minigun against her shoulder. "Not sure she ever was, she did ice Marowski on her second visit. She did in two weeks what we didn't do in fuck knows how long."

Hancock tilted his head in acknowledgement, and then realised that Fahrenheit was suddenly in a good mood, and he knew why, he knew because he knew Fahrenheit, and he knew Fahrenheit liked her bets.

He also knew how to ruin that good mood spectacularly.

"Pen said it first."

All the humour disappeared from Fahrenheit's expression, and she stepped forwards to snarl in his face, "Fuck you."

Hancock grinned happily and sauntered off to hook an arm around Pen's waist, pressing a kiss against hair that smelled like rain and gun oil.

Pen looked up at him, her smile warm and wonderful. "Hey."

"Hey," he murmured, savouring having her close. "I told Fahrenheit."

Pen snickered, and then she glanced around the busy room and nibbled her lip, grinning impishly when he watched her mouth. "Want to fuck up another bet?"

"Always."

Pen leaned up to press against him, her kiss more of a smile until he kissed back, and then it was unsteady breaths and fingers against his chest, it was committing every second to memory and every moment to her.

At the sound of people swearing profusely, they looked up to see a lot of caps landing in Daisy's gleefully outstretched hand.

The clamour had Fahrenheit popping her head through the door.

"Oh, for _fuck's_ sake."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are again, and I heard a rumour that it's gonna go all the way to Explicit this time, no foolin' - just ask InkQuery, my wonderful beta, who helped get this show back on the road <3
> 
> Oh, shameless plug, the first chapter of my MacCready fic, [Capers in Caps](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7516207/chapters/17084533), takes place before this one, if you want a bit more of Pen's world and some of everyone's favourite blue-eyed ~~boy~~ ~~cinnamon roll~~ merc.


	13. China

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know my own ~~strength~~ Britishisms. I swear I intended to make this, uh, translatable, but then some blighter shows up and shoves it into a cocked hat… We can consider it tutoring, _"never need a Britpicker again, by golly!"_ If you hover over the phrase, there's a translation for you.

> Going further from the place we come and love, but fear the most  
>  And change your mind, and now we'll nurse the way we feed like babies, on plastic bags  
>  And tryin' to chase the light, the time arrives, the time that leads back home  
>  It's not hard to let go
> 
> \- Kiev, _'Be Gone Dull Cage'_

"General?"

Pen cringed, hoping to hide for a little longer, wanting to shuck that damn title like a snake could shed its skin. It stuck its teeth in her like a rat and with it came fleas, biting, jumping things that showed up en masse with some grievance or another.

_Oh, General, the power's gone again._

_Oh, General, we're out of powdered mash._

_Oh, General, we need you to judge the fruit and vegetable competition._

So she had used the winner's melon for target practice, what had they expected when they put the damn thing on a plinth at the other end of the street? It was bad enough that they had expected her to give an honest-to-fuck _rosette_ – courtesy of a smirking Preston – but expecting her not to shower the streets in pink mist was just a step too far.

At least it had been watermelon that time, they _really_ hadn't appreciated the headshot she'd managed when a rabid radstag had gotten in.

No one had died, and yes, okay, Marcy got a little covered in blood, but honestly the woman was asking for a dousing when she simply stood in the street and screeched at the poor creature. Pen had done her a _favour_ by killing it so quickly – the scarlet shower had been a complete accident.

There was a shuffle of feet in the porch, and Pen stared dubiously at the front door.

Bugger, it opened.

"General? The new settlers have arrived."

Pen groaned in annoyance, the rifle on her back the only thing keeping her spine straight as she dragged herself to her feet. "I think you enjoy tormenting me, Preston."

The leader in everything but name, Preston snorted, as if pretending to smile and repeat a few names only to be instantly forgotten wasn't akin to torture of the blood-and-bone variety. "You're the one they want to see."

"No, the _General_ is the one they want to see." Pen levelled a stare at him, and he had the grace to duck his head in acknowledgement. They were damn happy to see Preston, he was all organisation and buzzing laser-rifle, but then he dropped _that word_ and they all showed up at her front door.

Torture.

The bastard managed to put a couple of settlers between them, and Pen spent the next five minutes asking questions she'd had to learn by rote after the last time she had asked a settler if he shot a mean game of pool – apparently that wasn't what they needed.

No, apparently what they needed was someone who could grow a fuck off watermelon and _maybe,_ as an added bonus, know which end of a gun the bullet came out of.

Pen was tired of bandaging up that little flap of skin between thumb and forefinger because people didn't know about recoil, she was tired of playing charades instead of cards – and charades got really fucking dull when celebrities didn't exist and everyone pretended to be her and Marcy.

There hadn't been _that_ much blood.

One of the newcomers perked up at the sight of her sniper rifle, and Pen leapt at the chance to splinter off and let Preston fill in the gaps – he actually remembered their names, clearly he was better suited to the task.

"Heard you had a nice gun," the stranger commented, his voice a typical ghoul's rasp but with a pair of ruddy cheeks to offset the age of irradiated skin. He didn't move like the others, his stance steady, his shoulders relaxed, and the well-cared for assault rifle on his back was a nice change.

Pen smiled, brow raised in surprise. "Where did you hear something like that?"

"Merc in Bunker Hill," he replied, hand reaching up to resettle his flat cap, a ring on the smallest finger. "Mentioned a girl with aim just a little worse than his."

Pen laughed out loud, affection warming all the lonely places in her heart. "MacCready gets around."

The ghoul grinned gamely, glancing at her up and down. "He really does, 'cause he definitely didn't say he was friends with the General of the Minutemen."

Pen's humour dimmed slightly, her smile now lopsided. "Yeah, well, he knows what side his bread's buttered."

MacCready knew as well as she did that the title suited her about as well as Fahrenheit suited a sundress and a mojito, and to know that she wasn't General to her friends made her happy. Pen had expected the ghoul to be confused, but he simply gave an interested hum and, before the silence could stretch, offered her a hand. "The name's Wedgwood."

Pen took the heavily scarred fingers, wondering when she had last shaken somebody's hand and knew it to be a good two centuries since. "Sounds like a name from my neck of the woods."

Wedgwood's face almost split with its crafty smile. "It is, I took up scavenging the first few decades and ended up with more pots than I wanted. The name made sense."

Pen snorted, head tilting to the side in curiosity, not just curiosity of a ghoul who spoke like she did, but of a ghoul who met her eye with something that looked alarmingly like respect.

"Something tells me you aren't here for the watermelon competition," Pen murmured, and Wedgwood's chuckle was a dark, delighted thing.

"Christ, is that what they've got you doing 'ere?"

Pen wasn't quite sure how to respond but she was saved from doing so by Preston calling her title, so she simply offered Wedgwood a conspiratorial whisper, "The fruit won't judge itself, you know."

Wedgwood tipped his flat cap at her, and she envied the easy way he wandered off to speak with the gate guards, to shoot the breeze with Sturges over the roar of a blowtorch. It was as easy as it was for her in Goodneighbor, and the thought was an ache in her chest.

Pen dutifully answered questions as she dragged her feet on tour duty, Preston subtly throwing the correct answer in when she didn't know what time dinner was served or when choir practice started.

"Is there really choir practice?"

Pen met Preston's good-natured glare with a sheepish shrug. "Sure, why not."

The prospective settlers relaxed with every step into Sanctuary, their smiles widening at the sounds of domestic chatter and the sights of high walls. Only one volunteered to go on the guard rota, the others suddenly finding the floor incredibly fascinating.

Funnily enough, they looked at their supposed General with something akin to distaste when she informed them that shooting practice was mandatory.

That one hadn't even been her idea, it was Preston's, but she was happy to take the flack if it meant they could stand on the wall with the rest of them when the gunfire started.

The tour ended with a welcome, both heartfelt but one resigned when they thanked her personally and ignored the man who had done all the work. Preston took it in his stride, but she bristled on his behalf, loudly announcing that Garvey was the one who brought it all together.

Who _kept_ it all together.

Preston gave her a small, grateful smile, and returned to his post at the gate. It was where he belonged, at the head, at the forefront, the brains behind the matter.

Pen felt a little homesick, and it wasn't for the continent across the pond.

She was itchy again, her skin too tight for her body, a title too tight for her taste, so she went where she always did when she was stuck on settlement arrest, hungry for a fresh breeze across her face, blood on her hands, and a rasped nickname that felt like a caress.

Pen had one foot on the shooting range before she realised someone was already there. Wedgwood had his eye to an attachable scope and his attention on the targets.

His peacoat would have been black once, but now it was a dull, faded grey, sewn many times at the elbows and shoulders. Coupled with the flat cap, she half expected the ghoul to have a rolled newspaper under one arm and a clay pipe smoking softly in the other.

The assault rifle skewed all those notions though, and the rhythmic rattle of bullets was enough to have her carefully examining his target – a far off stand upon which someone had drawn a scary face with a moustache.

He was good, too good for a settler, and too smart for a chance encounter. Wedgwood holstered his gun as she approached, her hands on her hips and a simple question at her lips.

"What do you want?"

"Work," he answered immediately, not at all thrown by her direct question. "I figured you'd 'ave something for me, something that ain't judging fruit anyway."

"It's a demanding job," Pen drawled, but she was careful not to trust someone she had just met, Hancock's voice in her ear telling her to be wary. And yet it was the first time she was _happy_ to have been sought out at a settlement, because for once it wasn't for a new radio or an extension on the house. "What do you do?"

"I'm a caravan guard, when the money's right, Judge," he replied, teeth in his smile when she rolled her eyes at the title – still, at least that one made her laugh, at least he laughed with her.

"And when the money's not right?"

"I moonlight as a mercenary," he answered simply, his honesty pleasing her. "It's where I met Mac, when he isn't flirting with Wolves."

Pen clapped her hands together in amusement. "Finally, someone who knows—"

"General?"

Pen deflated, like a balloon with a pinprick – some exasperated affection in the word _prick_ – and thought she saw a measure of sympathy in Wedgwood's expression.

"I'll be around," he announced before she could say anything. "Your man, Sturges, was tinkering with some turrets and I'm a dab hand."

He had taken the name of a famous potter, so Pen could only reply with one thing as she turned away. "You gonna throw 'em in the fire to glaze?"

"Funny, Judge, very funny!"

Pen allowed herself one little smile before it faded away at the sight of Preston with a gaggle of settlers at his heels, some of them the newcomers, and it felt like a jury.

Judge she might be, executioner she was not.

"A few people are willing to go to some of the other settlements, boost the numbers," Preston explained, and at that she did offer a genuine smile to those willing to help out. It was what she wanted, and it was why she stayed, stayed where she thought she could help most. "Do you have the papers?"

"Oh, uh, yeah," Pen muttered, chewing on her tongue in thought. "Give me a moment, I put them somewhere safe. Probably."

Preston raised a brow, so she made a sharp exit before that jury could deliver a verdict.

They called it her house, the General's house, but it wasn't, not really, just as the title wasn't either. It was her brother's house, it always would be, and she still felt a little odd going through his rooms, his cupboards, and opening the safe he had once given her the combination to.

It was her date of birth, the sappy shit.

Pen's smile was a little sad as she rifled through the documents stored inside, skipping the three birth certificates that looked a little too much like _death_ certificates now, pausing briefly at a passport she couldn't use and a plane ticket she'd never need.

She'd missed check-in by a good few centuries.

What a waste of duty free shopping.

There was a brief commotion outside, but it wasn't enough to move her from where she had clambered half inside the cupboard. For all she knew someone had grown the world's largest tato. She distractedly hoped Wedgwood had shot it.

"General?"

"I'm going to change my name by deed poll," she answered Preston irritably, finally finding the settlement numbers. "Yours too, you can be Preston Gravy, see if I don't."

There were footsteps outside the bedroom, and Pen assumed Wedgwood really had shot that tato, because Preston never came inside the house unless it was an emergency.

"What're you doin' in there, kitten?"

 

* * *

 

Hancock watched Pen's scowl melt away, and then stumbled back a step when she crashed into his chest, papers flying everywhere and her rifle nearly taking his eye out.

He might have teased her for it if he hadn't already grabbed her in his arms and lifted her up a few inches, the almost giddy excitement that had been building since he had spotted Sanctuary suddenly coming to fruition in his smile.

It had been over a week, and every day had felt like torture – although he'd guess it wasn't as bad as dealing with the bunch of green settlers he had seen outside.

"Movin' in day?"

Pen nodded at the question mumbled into her hair, and her reply was almost lost in his duster, and then again because he thought he hadn't heard correctly.

"Make them go away?"

Hancock chuckled, his hand sliding up her back to tangle in her hair, every second like a treat to his senses. "I could, but s'normally what gets ghouls a bad rep."

Pen pulled back to smile up at him, and it was such a delighted, simple thing, so at contrast to the smudges of sleeplessness around her eyes and the tightness to her jaw.

It was an effort not to squeeze her tighter, but his chest did anyway, concern a visceral thing that had him frowning. Pen was up on her tiptoes before he could say anything, and he abandoned thought for a moment when she kissed him, her contented sigh an echo of his own.

"Just growl at them for me, please," she murmured against his mouth, and he couldn't help his grin.

"It'll look better comin' from you, trust me."

Pen pouted, so he brushed his teeth against her lower lip, savouring the soft little sound she made and the way her voice turned teasing. "You just want to see me growl."

"S'one of the charms, yeah," he answered honestly, but he tilted his head in consideration – and to catch her lip between his teeth again when she smiled. "They need a good growlin', if you ask me."

Once, she might have said, _I'm not asking you,_ but she simply looked at him, and his frown returned.

"What's wrong?"

Pen tucked up against him again, cheek to his chest, eyelashes casting shadows on her cheekbones as he looked down at her. "I'm tired."

It was a statement, simple and honest, and yet he knew it meant far more than scant hours of sleep. He knew because he had said it himself, in his time as mayor.

It was the work of seconds to carry Pen to the sofa, her brief yelp of surprise followed by fingers that curled around his neck when he settled her next to him, legs thrown across his lap and one of his hands spread over her calf.

"Talk."

Pen slumped dejectedly into the pillows, but her mouth curved at a corner when he raised an expectant brow. She seemed to realise that she wasn't going anywhere until he was satisfied; Fahrenheit did the same thing to him – but with less carrying and more punching.

"When did you learn to read me so well?" Pen murmured, smile growing when he chuckled happily, but she tangled their fingers together when she would have once fiddled with the dog tags about her wrist. "Do you remember when I said I didn't know what I was doing, that night you got shot?"

Hancock played that night over for many different reasons, but that really wasn't one of them. "You mean the day we both got shot?"

Pen waved her hand as if that was just semantics, but the humour of the moment passed when her brow puckered thoughtfully. "Being back in Sanctuary, it makes me remember a lot more. From before the bombs, I mean."

It was hardly surprising, he wouldn't have blamed her for getting shot of the entire place the moment she had known there were other places to live in the Commonwealth, but she had gotten stuck here.

In more ways than one, apparently.

Pen shifted slightly, her gaze going to a distance he couldn't see. "Life back then, it was about having this mask, all the time. From the moment you woke up in the morning, before your shower, before your tea, you had to look into the mirror and _smile_."

Pen's mouth curved, her teeth flashing between cupid's bow lips. It looked so very real, and it was chilling knowing that it wasn't.

Then it faded, and that was worse.

"You had to keep that smile all day, and it wouldn't fade until you got into your bed, sometimes it wasn't until you fell asleep," Pen murmured, but her voice hardened when she continued. "The bombs, they ripped the masks off, the smiles melted away to show true smiles beneath, the bone in a garish grin. People don't hide now, they just shove a gun in your face and their smiles are _real_."

Hancock had seen more than his fair share of those smiles, he had seen them at both ends of a scope, and he knew she was wrong.

"People have still got masks, kitten, don't ever think you're always seein' the truth."

Pen's shrug said that she didn't want to believe that, and Hancock started to see just how much she had left behind when she came out of that freezer, and just how much didn't leave.

"I looked out at the Commonwealth and saw this… _shell,_ a husk of existence, but then I saw life, in hardy little trees and scrappy dogs and _people,_ people who didn't need masks anymore. There's no one to impress, no bosses to suck up to, and nuclear family really doesn't mean what it used to, now."

"Just 'cause the world changed doesn't mean people have," he interjected, and she looked at him, doubt on her face. "People still lie, Pen. We all gotta lie, sometimes. That's life, it's how you get by."

Pen looked out the window then, at the people putting laundry on the lines and someone hefting – of all things – a massive watermelon on their shoulders.

"We lie to survive."

Hancock scowled, not liking the sudden weight to her shoulders, the reappearance of lines about her eyes, and he squeezed her leg to get her attention.

"You know you don't owe 'em anything, right?"

Pen's eyes widened, and he knew he'd hit the nail on the head. "The Minutemen?"

"Anyone, the Minutemen, some random traders, any fucker you bump into on the road. They ain't owed your loyalty, you're puttin' them before you an' it ain't right."

Pen bristled, sitting up in anger. "I _want_ to help people."

"You _are_ ," Hancock answered, almost exasperated. "Look, just 'cause you look out for 'em on the road, 'cause you're killin' raiders an' making the world a better place—" Pen started to laugh. "—it doesn't mean you have to do the settling shit, too."

Pen's amusement died away, her question a quiet one. "No?"

"Fuck no, everyone has to have their role an' you're overreachin'. You're doing the jobs of ten people, an' those nine ain't doing anything else, they're sat on their ass an bitchin' about the weather."

Pen's mouth twisted in consideration. "But you check on everyone that comes into Goodneighbor."

"I try to, if only 'cause I like to know who's gonna be sleepin' nearby, but I'm just there to show my face, Fahrenheit has the drifters under control – and when she's sick of 'em, Kelvin steps in. S'all about teamwork, kitten."

Pen knew in her heart of hearts that there was something very fundamentally right about that, about teamwork, but she didn't have a team, not in the Minutemen, not in Sanctuary.

She had been lonely the second they had crossed the river from Goodneighbor last week, but it wasn't in her to abandon a cause, not when people needed help, not when people needed _people._

Of course, the Minutemen were not the only recourse when it came to that, but the other groups in the Commonwealth were a little _stubborn._

One of whom was still on a righteous diatribe in her defence. "Preston doesn't know he's been fuckin' _born_ having you around!"

Pen tipped her head back into the sofa with a sigh. "He knows very well, he's just wary of the title after what happened in Quincy."

Hancock sobered then, head weighing to the side in deference. "Yeah, well, can't blame 'im for that, but that doesn't mean you gotta take the weight instead."

"I can't just sit around; I can't not be _doing_ something."

Hancock gestured at the room, at her curled up against him with nary a document or gun in hand. "What about right now?"

Pen flushed faintly. "It's different."

"Yeah, 'cause I don't expect you to be doin' something twenty-four hours a day," he explained dryly. It was the same in Goodneighbor. Pen relaxed there, she breathed, laughed, danced. She laughed a little now, but it wasn't enough.

"Daisy says she plans to make me curator of the library."

Hancock chuckled at the surprise in her tone. "Havin' a role ain't same as bein' on your feet all day. You help everyone you meet just by clearin' out a pack of mutants on the road. An' what about MacCready, he's the same as you."

"Official pain in the arse?"

"We'll put it on his lapel badge," Hancock joked, but squeezed her calf when he was serious again. "You both go out and get shit done, you build bases so tradin's easier, an' you come back and tell us about places to scavenge. That's your job, if you need one."

Pen quietened, her voice from a time long past. "Is that enough?"

"Kitten, it's more than enough," Hancock answered, his fingers twining with hers so he could press a kiss to her knuckles – still so smooth to him, but there were growing callouses, scars, signs of a fight well fought.

Pen leaned her head against his shoulder, her sigh sounding almost relieved. "I wanted to get away from that 9-to-5 thing and here I am working longer hours."

Hancock laughed gently, knowing the feeling all too well. "The benefits are better now."

Pen glanced up at him so he could wink at her, and she snickered. "There's no dental."

"No, but you don't gotta practice your smile with me, darlin'."

Pen paused in surprise, and this time, her smile was soft and so very real.

 

* * *

 

They were still on the sofa half an hour later, Pen having come up with some creative insults when Preston knocked on the door, and Hancock having reiterated those insults to Preston himself – only in a much friendlier voice.

Sort of.

Preston, to his credit, had given Hancock a long, probing look, before a smile had twitched his lips. "Good day, Mayor Hancock."

Hancock turned to Pen with a wry grin once he had shut the door. "He's smart, that one."

"He is," Pen answered, hand reaching for his as he sat down again, as if she didn't want him gone for too long now that he was here. He answered by simply pulling her onto his lap, and she settled happily against his chest.

He didn't remember being quite so tactile before he had met her, but it was a surprisingly grounding thing to have her close, to hold her hand. It was starting to rub off on him, too, because Fahrenheit had smacked him about the jaw when he had gone to ruffle her hair the other day.

Although that was her general reaction when anyone tried to touch it, so who could really say?

Daisy had always been a hugger, and Kelvin partial to a clap on the shoulder or a grip of the forearm whenever they saw each other. It was strange, like a language he hadn't known before, but now he understood it.

It was comfort in an uncomfortable world.

Pen tilted her head at him, thoughts still on Preston's last words. "You introduce yourself as Hancock, but some of your people still call you John."

"Some of 'em I knew before I became the ghoul I am today – an' I don't just mean the drug," he laughed, very clearly remembering Fahrenheit's reaction when he had returned to Goodneighbor with a new face. "Besides, it's a trust thing, they like callin' me by a name no one else does, just as your lot like callin' you General."

Pen raised a wry brow. "Why do I get the feeling you've come out of that situation better than I have?"

"I've been doin' this a lot longer than you, kitten," he replied with a wink, and tugged at a strand of blonde hair when a question suddenly came to him. "Pen what?"

Pen looked up in surprise, a smile at her lips. "You only just thought to ask?"

"You were 'kitten' almost immediately, didn't really cross my mind."

When he shrugged, she did too. "Does it matter?"

"No," he answered honestly, making himself more comfortable against the cushions and considering stealing one for back home. "Just curious."

She looked at him for a moment, and then jumped up, disappearing into the bedroom before returning with a small pile of papers. A plastic-type book landed in his lap, shortly followed by half of Pen as she settled against his side.

"What's this?"

"It's a passport, identification. We needed it for travel."

Hancock kept her gaze for a moment, and sensed that he was the first one to look in this little book for a long, long time. It felt rather portentous to hold something as old as she was – so he held her too, one arm going around her shoulders as she leaned in close.

The words were faded, the picture more so, but the name suited her and he said as much.

Pen wrinkled her nose. "I never thought so, it's why I don't use it now, that and because it reminds me of my brother." She handed him a picture from the pile, a greyscale portrait of Pen and a man with her shade of hair, cropped short where hers was long.

They looked similar, more so after a week at Sanctuary with tiredness in her face, but the man was all hard lines, the hint of Pen's softer jaw shared between them, and the rest was the smile.

They were easy smiles.

"It was always more his name than mine," Pen murmured, and when he gave her a confused look, she smiled wryly. "You know what military types are like, always calling each other by their surnames, even I did in the end."

Hancock felt the information like a gift in his lap, like a wrapped parcel of time, memory in the form of faded pictures and hushed words, and he wondered if Pen had been able to talk about this before.

He held her tighter, his question a quiet one. "What did he call you?"

"Pain in the arse," she laughed, but he caught the grief in it when she made 'pain' sound like 'Pen'. There was a sigh, pale fingers over her chest, as if she ached. "He called me Penny, even when he left home. Every two weeks he'd call me, he was better at keeping in touch than I was, I was better with letters. Every phone call, every envelope, every rib-bruising hug, _Little Penny, penny-farthing, ha'penny, can't even escape you in the Wealths, still pennies in my pockets and not enough dollars_. I'd call him a traitor, he'd call me a redcoat."

Pen broke off to laugh then, eyes meeting his under lowered lashes. "He'd get a kick out of knowing your name after the shit I gave him for moving over the pond."

Hancock had to grin at that. "I read up on your tea, it sounds gross."

"Thanks," she drawled, but she smiled at him properly now, and it didn't go away when she packed the pictures away, the passport and the papers bar one of graphs and lists. "It's the settlement details, how many are where, who needs what."

Hancock glanced down it, whistling when he spotted a few familiar places. "You've spread far."

"It's important," she replied, and he wondered how she had ever thought what she did wasn't wonderful, wasn't _helping,_ in its simplest, most generous form. Perhaps nobody had told her, before now. "It's not just the numbers or accountability, it's support, it's a network."

Hancock gave the sheet back to her, brows high. "Glad I don't have to deal with shit like that."

Pen nodded slowly, and Hancock had a very sneaky feeling that this thing with the Minutemen wasn't over. "That's the point of the settlements, of allies," she added, "it's spread out over lots of people, shares the burden. The Railroad must have a support network."

"I wouldn't know," he replied immediately, frown pronounced when he sensed he was being beguiled into something by a kitten with claws.

Pen gave him a surprised look, almost disappointed. "You've never met?"

"Never felt the need to," he answered with a shrug. "Besides, it's hard to sneak synths around when everyone knows you're doin' it."

"But it's their job, surely they're secretive too," she countered, frowning when he did.

"Never trust anyone you wouldn't show your back to, kitten."

Pen tilted her head in acknowledgement, but her sigh was sad. "It's hard not to trust."

Hancock didn't want her to learn that it wasn't, that trust was hard-earned and easily lost, because to learn that meant she would have to experience the worst of it, so he simply told her what he knew.

"It might feel like it is, but it ain't, an' it's a lot easier than bein' stabbed in the back. I can count on two hands how many people I'd trust with my life, an' do-gooders who've taken up home in the sewers ain't on my hand."

"I thought you liked do-gooders," she teased, fingertips playing over his knuckles.

"I do, I love one," he added smoothly, smile quirking when she flushed. "End of the day, you gotta know where people's loyalties lie, mine are to my people, theirs are with theirs, that's just the way the world works."

Pen nodded, taking this in her stride, thoughts already elsewhere, scheming something that would no doubt give him grey hairs if he'd had any. She didn't seem to realise what he had said, what he had meant.

She spent so much of her time trying to be what the Minutemen needed that she didn't realise she was already everything he wanted, already everything the world might need. Preston wanted her at gateways and guard posts, but she belonged on the road, her help came in the style of a grey gun and silver tongue.

Which, really, was Goodneighbor in its essence. Pen might be a do-gooder, but she was theirs.

Whether she realised it or not, Goodneighbor had claimed her, she was part of the furniture now, her name in every called greeting and her share in every bet. Pen was of the people, because she had always been for them, from the very beginning.

It was in her nature.

"What if the Railroad are the ones who need help?"

Sometimes Hancock really disliked her nature.

He huffed a sigh, head weighing to the side. "They aren't the type to ask, these are people who stake their lives on gettin' synths out, remember."

"So do you," she pointed out.

"Yeah, an' I don't need some underground organisation poking 'round in my business either," he muttered, knowing full well that he sounded grumpy. Pen was upsetting the natural order of things, of his _life_. Things didn't often change for a ghoul whose bootprints were worn into the balcony floor. "Fahrenheit won't like it."

Pen snorted, her expression knowing. "Fahrenheit's been worrying about the day the Memory Den gets found out since the first time you helped a synth," she said, annoyingly astute, but she sobered to add, "What if we need help?"

Hancock frowned, somewhere between defiance and confusion but happily distracted by that very nice-sounding word, _we_. "We don't."

"Not now, but what if we do?"

"We handle it, we always have," Hancock answered, the rise and fall of Goodneighbor's structure like his own history by now. The town lived within them all, and they fought for it with every breath, each one of his trusted people like an organ in a great beast.

Pen sighed, seemingly at odds with herself. "Goodneighbor can handle a lot, but the rest of the Commonwealth can't. Those settlements out there—"

"That's what the Minutemen's for," he interrupted, but she scowled at him and tried to amend.

"Those other people—"

"Brotherhood."

"Synths—"

"Railroad."

Pen got up in his face, jaw grit tight but her hand gentle within his. "Rascal."

Hancock smirked, his answer obvious. "Goodneighbor."

She threw her arms up in the air, about-turning on one foot to pace over to the window, brow furrowed as she looked outside and saw…

He didn't know what she saw. When he looked out of his own window, he saw home, he saw his people, he saw an empire in miniature weathering everything the Commonwealth could throw at them. They had worked hard to get there, and he knew full well how easy it was to lose it all.

"I sent a guy once, on the Freedom Trail," he offered, offered evidence for a group that trusted people even less than he did. "We found 'im a fortnight later, tied to a roof antenna."

Hancock expected her to scowl, Pen never did like hostage situations, but she did that thing, that thing where she heard how clear his opinion was on something and then, with eyes so blue they looked like clear skies with nary a storm in sight, she shrugged.

"They must have kept him fed whilst he was up there then."

Hancock opened his mouth to deny her, and then had to close it again, because she was right.

 _Fuck_.

Fahrenheit was going to love this.

It was in Pen's nature to do things he never got around to, like killing off a piss-poor drug lord and hunting down a group who prided themselves on secrecy. Goodneighbor now thrived from trade with the Minutemen, and he thrived on life spent with a kitten who went looking for trouble – and he included himself in that.

Pen had come out of the fire with a purpose. Hancock trusted, and he loved, so he asked only one thing.

"Who you gonna take?"

Her smile was surprised, pleased, and then it pressed against his mouth as she returned to his lap, grateful and giddy all in one.

He couldn't deny her anything so he had no idea why she was so damn shocked, even if he did enjoy the way her fingers slid up his chest.

Maybe it _was_ time to give the Railroad a little nudge, they'd let Amelia slip after all, synth recovery shouldn't have been in his job description, and Pen would be able to get where Goodneighbor couldn't.

Maybe they would finally flush Desdemona's slippery second-in-command out of hiding, whoever they were.

"Don't take MacCready," he mumbled into the kiss, grinning when she laughed. "He'll only trip over his own feet."

"Don't be mean," she murmured, teeth catching his tongue in silent threat. "I was going to ask Nick."

"Good, get that bag of bolts up an' runnin'."

Pen tutted affectionately, her arms curled around his neck. "How are you still alive?"

"I'm charming," he replied, enjoying her laughter the way a bird enjoys the breeze, the weight off of his wings and a clear sky ahead. "Look out for the one with white hair, she's a good shot."

Pen nodded, but she didn't move away, she wasn't in any rush, and neither was he. They had time, as much time as they wanted, and Hancock proved it with a lazy swipe of his hands down her waist, his palms settling on her thighs where they knelt either side of his, and her question was a contented thing.

"Anything else?"

Hancock nudged their foreheads together, his smile against hers when she kissed him again, slow and savouring. The days would count down soon, but not yet. Besides, there was fairness in her lips and feral in her eyes, so he knew she would be fine.

"Happy huntin', kitten."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Ave a good butchers, me ol' china? Wedgwood's not even an eastie, but the lingo don't leave. Anyway, do leave me a comment if there's any others I missed, I'll put in a mouseover for them.
> 
> As always, I adore each and every one of you, you make convalescing easier; give me a bell on [Tumblr!](https://comehitherashes.tumblr.com)


	14. Livid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This first scene almost didn't make it in, but my lovely beta insisted. It's a taste of what's to come, and you can thank me for the mental image later <3 
> 
> As an aside, [here's 2k of snowy almost-smut](http://comehitherashes.tumblr.com/post/150419795978/fishinabearsuit-for-penhancock-please-10#notes) for a prompt someone lovely gave me on Tumblr.

> Now, never trust a scarecrow wearin' shades after dark  
>  Be careful of that old bow tie he wears  
>  It takes a sweet little bullet from a pretty blue gun  
>  To put those scarlet ribbons in your hair
> 
> No, that ain't no cherry bomb  
>  4th of July's all done  
>  It's just some fool playin' that second line  
>  From the barrel of a pretty blue gun
> 
> \- Tom Waits, _'A Sweet Little Bullet from a Pretty Blue Gun'_

In a world without cars, without planes and trains, without _noise,_ the world was quiet. It spoke in hushed whispers, of dead trees in a dead wind, of dying stars in a dying sky, and under a mantle of silence, the world had waited.

It waited for people to come back, to crawl from the ashes of the bombs, just as the dead trees made way for new saplings, as dead winds brought new life on each breeze.

The people had found their voices again, they were loud amidst the rubble, the radiation, the ruined remnants of a world that had once rumbled with noise. On the outskirts of Diamond City, guards patrolled and drifters called, Goodneighbor rang with raucous jokes and Bunker Hill with wily trades, and every town, every settlement, every camp on the road and every cave off of it, was lit with firelight and laughter.

They weren't all safe, but they weren't all dangerous, and the world seemed a little more welcoming to a woman who had felt the silence of two centuries, felt the chill of more.

The world was loud, and warm, and it was _alive_.

Pen enjoyed the walk to Goodneighbor – it was better than the walk _away_ from it. She enjoyed picking over a different spot with every journey, she enjoyed the way the world looked different with every change of the hour, with every shift of the weather.

It was raining now, close to pouring, and she had her arms outstretched and her face turned up to the skies to feel it pattering on her face. It wasn't exactly fresh, she didn't dare open her mouth like she had when she was a kid, but she still loved it.

The ghoul in the peacoat and flatcap next to her, really didn't.

"Two hundred years on ice and you're still at 'ome in the rain," Wedgwood muttered, collar up high around his neck. "Proper Brit you, eh?"

Pen laughed, damp shoulders shrugging in a sleeveless windbreaker, shirt sleeves rolled up to expose her forearms to the weather. "Says the ghoul who looks like he's just stepped out of a Cornish pub."

Wedgwood snorted, rain dripping from the peak of his hat. "I've acclimatised in over 200 years."

"And yet you're still talking about the weather."

Wedgwood laughed outright, offering her an acknowledging nod. "Fair enough, lost the accent though."

"But not the sarcasm," she countered, and grinned when he smirked.

Wedgwood hadn't bothered to ingratiate himself into Sanctuary for some reason, choosing instead to spend his time on the practice range and shooting the breeze with her as she did her tasks. He was good company, a good shot, and they were both damn pleased to be back on the road again.

Or, at least, out of Sanctuary and away from the watermelon competitions.

Wedgwood's step faltered, just a breath of a thing, one he inhaled sharply and exhaled slowly, only to be followed by a flash of green-tinged light in the stormy skies above.

She had seen Hancock do the same thing, just before he hung his duster over her shoulders and ushered her indoors, away from the radiation that would soon roll over the land.

"Does it feel that good?" It was a question she had wanted to ask for a while, but Hancock only gave short answers to her questions about ghoulishness, as if worried the answers would put her off him – as if such a thing were possible.

Wedgwood altered their path slightly, his steps heading left instead of right until Pen had to alter her course too or bump into him. He was shepherding her to safety without making a big deal of it, and she wondered if he did the same thing to MacCready when they took bounties together.

It was sweet.

"You ever take a hit?"

Pen shook her head, flinging water as she did so. "Only some post-war meds, nothing recreational."

Wedgwood chewed on his cheek, his head turning absent-mindedly into the rain – rain that bit a little into Pen's exposed forearms now, stung at her neck and nipped at her cheeks.

"It's not like alcohol, it's not like that thing you do when the rain starts to hit or the breeze shifts, it's more intense, it's like…" Wedgwood trailed off, not seeing her smile when he mentioned _her thing._ Hancock noticed it too, but she couldn't help it. There weren't many things to remind her that the world had not ended, but she cherished those that did.

Sometimes it was the simple things, sweet pine on a wayward breeze, hot dust on a harsher one, and Hancock's personal favourite: petrichor, _warm rain and gun oil on a blonde that breezed into my life._

"It's like sex," Wedgwood announced, intruding on her thoughts so abruptly that she choked on a breath.

His laugh took on a devilish edge when she stared wildly at him and asked, "What?"

"When the rads hit, it's like sex. That slow, steady burn before it splinters inside of you, but the far off lightning is like foreplay, or anticipation," he explained easily, and Pen made some affirming noise as she tried not to flush in embarrassment.

That would certainly explain why Hancock always came on to her during a rad storm – after they had so conveniently hidden away somewhere safe, their quiet flirtation the only noise in a dusty, silent basement before Hancock went back up to see if the storm had passed.

His voice always huskier and his fingers curled tight into his palms, and now she knew why.

Unbidden, the thought of Hancock finishing himself off to a backdrop of a rad-forked sky sprung into her head, and everything short-circuited.

Pen somehow managed to speak, managed to make words form in the sudden heated mess of her brain. "Is it like that for everyone?"

Wedgwood shrugged, not noticing the way her fingers twitched – the way they curled tight into her palms. "It's gotten less as I've aged; the newer the ghoul, the brighter the fire. I get a nice burn these days, doesn't debilitate me like it used to, I find my splintering elsewhere," Wedgwood replied, grinning when she flushed. "Hancock's pretty young, isn't he?"

Pen flashed him a glare, trying not to laugh. "I'll shoot you."

"Two spry young things."

"No hesitation."

"One pre-war, one post, it's like an apocalyptic Romeo and Juliet."

Pen snorted, her crescent-marked palm upturned in front of her, as if gesturing to an audience. "Wherefore art thou, Hancock?"

Wedgwood read into the translation a little too well, reading the _why_ and not the _where._ "It never bothered you, his being a ghoul?"

She gave him a surprised look – of all the things to ask when she was travelling with one – but he met her gaze squarely, and she realised it was a question born of someone who had lived 200 years ago. Someone who had accepted what they had become, _who_ they had become, but now to find someone who still acted like they had one foot in the past, the question had meaning again.

"He made me laugh," she said simply, and a small sympathetic smile twisted a corner of Wedgwood's mouth. She'd had no cause to laugh back then, very little reason to smile, even with the few friends she had made before finding Goodneighbor. The Commonwealth was scary, unfamiliar, and that town of rascals and reprobates had felt like her favourite chair in her favourite pub. Worn, cozy, and a little bit deadly if approached the wrong way.

"I'm the oddity, here," she added, this time answering the brunt of his question, the question of ghouls to someone who had read the same newspapers, watched the same television shows, drank the same brand of tea. "Ghouls are survivors."

Wedgwood shrugged the compliment off. "A quirk of fate."

Pen shoved her hands in her pockets, sleeves rolled down to shield from the sting of irradiated rain – another sign that she wasn't born into this world, hadn't _evolved._ "Or perhaps you were always a survivor, and the radiation acclimatised to you."

Wedgwood looked startled, but it turned to thoughtful – not to hope, but to contentment _._ "The man maketh the ghoul?"

"Why not?"

It was an idle thought to her, but Wedgwood mulled it over as they walked, as the storm neared, and just as shelter came into view, he gave her a reassuring smile that – bizarrely enough – reminded her of her brother. It was the smile he had given her after a tour away. "We're both survivors, and we're both a little odd."

Pen had to laugh, although she suddenly felt very young opposite his old eyes. "I'll drink to that."

Pen held the door open for him, and had to look back when he cleared his throat, his feet not moving from his guarded stance at the door. "I'll stick around out here, just until the storm's passed."

She would have frowned, would have asked him why before that honest explanation on the road, so she simply tossed him a mutfruit and gave an over-exaggerated wink. "Have fun."

Wedgwood rolled his eyes, vaguely disgusted but smile undeniable. "Go to bed."

Pen's laughter filled the little cellar, and although she was used to these detours, used to the dank smell and the lumpy floor, she couldn't quite sleep. Her thoughts were full of rad storms, of mental images seared onto her eyelids just like lightning bolts.

Pen blinked into the darkness and thought of Hancock.

The ice had changed her in so many ways, but perhaps she was the one who had changed, who had _accepted_ the change rather than revert back to old ways; forced to adapt, to _acclimatise._

The weather was normal to her now, the food and water too, as normal as a gun in her hands and blood on her face. She was learning how to hold a knife, how to fight, how to twist under a ghoul who laughed in her ear and promised all sorts of things if she could get him off of his feet.

She had learned how to love again, how to laugh again, how to cope with the bucking in her stomach at every roguish smile, how to breathe through every promise that brought goosebumps to her skin.

Thunder rolled overhead, and it felt like anticipation.

She was acclimatising.

 

* * *

 

There was a scratching in Hancock's mind, a soft shuffling of metal against metal and a persistent clicking. It clicked the way mirelurks clicked, the way radroaches clicked, quiet and insistent before the _crack_.

Instead, there was a _thunk._

Someone was trying to open his door.

Hancock aimed a narrow-eyed glance at the handle, adrenaline a low thrum through his body even as the rest of him wanted to go back to sleep. The door stood firm, as it should, because it was locked.

Not only was it locked, it was trapped – just a small thing after Fahrenheit had broken into his room yesterday, despite how pathetically enraged his shouts had been. He'd had the hangover from hell but that hadn't stopped her – presumably because she made her damn home in fire pits and brimstone.

There was a bucket of water over the top of his door, which would give her the same reception she had given him at stupid o'clock in the morning. It had taken his bed hours to dry off, and it still smelled a little damp.

Judging by the time the interloper was taking, it wasn't Fahrenheit. Hancock snorted and rolled over, confident in his badass lock – and the trap, just in case it _was_ Fahrenheit. No one else bothered trying, not when they would also have to dodge the potential shotgun blast in the open doorway, but apparently some folks were determined.

Hancock had dozed off at the sound of an annoyed huff and receding steps, but he flicked an eye open at the sound of two soft voices only a few metres away.

Familiar voices, at that.

There was a questioning noise, and then a male voice answered in a whisper. "No, you need to angle the pin better. It's a three bar, you need to be ready for all of them when they fall."

Hancock's breath had caught at the first voice, but it whooshed out with a laugh at the second, especially when he heard a sharply muttered curse word.

"Wait, wait, take the picks out, there's a wire. See it, that little gleam of light where the doors meet? Cut it. D'you still not have a knife? Here, use mine, be _very_ careful."

After a hushed snip of sound, Hancock watched his simple trap go dormant, and he smiled at the satisfied reply beyond the now unlocked door. "Okay, I think I've got it."

"You sure he's not gonna shoot you?"

"I'm sure." Hancock could hear the smile in the reply, a smile of cupid's bow lips curved in mischief. "Besides, he's already listening to us."

"Oh," MacCready answered in relief, and then presumably wrinkled his nose. " _Oh_. I'm leaving then, you should sound proof this room."

"Sure thing, _pup_."

"Screw you," MacCready snarled, to the tune of a delighted laugh.

"Isn't that why I'm meant to be soundproofing?"

There was a brief scuffle of sound outside, as if one had swiped and the other had danced away, muffled laughter bouncing along the floorboards to where Hancock waited with baited breath.

The door opened, only to be shut with a kick as Pen leaped on top of him, grin a mile wide and smelling gloriously of dusty open roads and warm rain, her holsters digging into his thighs and the burn wonderful.

"I'm gonna kill MacCready," Hancock murmured idly, no venom in it when he was carding his fingers through Pen's hair and delighting in having her close, his own smile spreading in sleepy satisfaction when Pen leaned down to push their foreheads together.

"I can pick your lock," she announced proudly, and Hancock wondered whether he should pity the Commonwealth now.

It was hard to think about much else when Pen settled closer, her boots leaving marks on his sheets and her hands leaving marks on his chest. "You can pick my lock any day, kitten."

Pen laughed, and the sound of it felt like a relief, a breath he had been holding since she had left, and now he wanted to hear it again the way a parched man wants to drown in water. "I bet you say that to all the girls,"

"Not just the girls," he answered, his brow high and his smile sly, relishing the warm weight of her.

Pen snorted, thumbs stroking along his collarbone. "Sentry bots and assaultrons too, I don't doubt. Even a deathclaw, if they fell for your charms."

"Not anymore," Hancock chuckled, and leaned up off of the bed to catch her smile in a kiss, murmuring his answer against her lips in the most ridiculous voice he could manage. "Only to you."

Pen snickered, and gave a piss-poor impression of Fahrenheit. "Sappy shit."

Hancock grinned as Pen followed his mouth back down to the pillows, strands of her hair tickling his cheeks and catching the early dawn light that had given away his wired trap. The scars on her skin disappeared in the glow, but he caught them with his fingers, his hands sliding over her shoulders to find more.

She gave a wince around her ribs, but he smoothed a palm over the pain and sucked at her lip, her hiss heated instead of hurt. Eventually, satisfied she wasn't in any danger, he rolled her, and grumbled to the tune of Pen's laugh when the blankets coiled around his legs like some sort of damn chastity belt.

Pen kissed him again, the tension leaving her body as she sighed into his neck, as if she had relaxed for the first time in a long while, and it was heady to know it was with him. Still, Hancock forced himself to ask, just in case something was wrong. "What's brought you down?"

"You," she answered simply, and Hancock chuckled, enjoying the taste of sweet-talk on Pen's tongue. "I missed you."

It was a whisper that had him groaning, his sleep-starved body responding pretty damn readily when she couldn't quite hold back an arch against him.

"You come on your own?" Hancock asked distractedly, also remembering how nice it was when Daisy got off his back about getting a new source of trade set up. Things between Goodneighbor and Diamond City were never exactly _stellar,_ but now even the neutral traders were drying up. Thrown off route by attacks, not just super mutants and raiders, but others.

Drifters.

"No, we met a caravan on the way, Fahrenheit's giving them the third degree," Pen murmured, but she didn't ask why. It was an unspoken thing between them, she never asked questions, and he would always tell her anyway, the same happened in reverse.

Hancock didn't want to break the kiss, didn't want to relinquish his hold on her just yet – both physical and emotional – but he did pause to ask, "We?"

Pen gave him a nip, sucking on the hurt with a smile when he sounded possessive. "Wedgwood."

Hancock relaxed, his head dipping to meet her mouth again, an apology and adoration in one.

Of course the ghoul had followed Pen, he reminded Hancock of one of those supermutant hellhounds, vicious and stubborn. Settlers already flocked to Pen, to the Minutemen, for the protection they could give, it had only been a matter of time before some hard-hitters wanted to add their weight to the cause.

It was hard not to like anyone who respected Pen, but Hancock had tried to remain impartial at first, tried to gauge the ghoul's worth when he seemed determined to stick by Pen's side. The word _bodyguard_ had made Pen wrinkle her nose, but it was familiar to him—a _necessity._

Pen wasn't a ghoul, she wasn't with the Brotherhood of Steel or the Institute, but she got shit done and that wasn't always appreciated, so when he had gone up to Sanctuary a week and heard about Pen's new admirer, Hancock had been keen to meet the oddly dressed ghoul who had been waiting patiently in the shooting range.

Wedgwood had taken one look at him, one look at Pen, and then stuck out his hand in greeting, a surprised smile lifting one corner of his mouth. "Mayor Hancock, it's a pleasure."

It wasn't as if his face went unknown in those parts, but the immediate acceptance was a surprise, as was the fact that the ghoul had apparently figured out what had taken them far too long to realise. Then again, maybe it was as Fahrenheit said, and they did just look like lovesick idiots.

"Likewise," Hancock had answered, finding it odd to meet hand-to-hand rather than forearm-to-forearm, but he had shaken the ghoul's hand anyway. "I've heard your name before, sticks in the head."

Pen had snickered, and Wedgwood had glanced at her to smile at some reference Hancock was too young to understand – a thought that always threw him for six. Still, Hancock had told Pen everything he knew about the ghoul and she had given him her first impressions. It wasn't much, but it was enough to allay any fears on both their parts.

"Pen says you're lookin' for work."

Wedgwood had seemed shocked, his smile self-effacing as he spread his arms wide. "Uh, yeah, can't say I was expecting Goodneighbor's mayor to offer me a job."

Hancock had given him a lazy grin. "I'm not."

Wedgwood had laughed, and they had passed the rest of the evening exchanging stories around a fire in Pen's back garden, Hancock asking about mutual friends and Pen trying to get information about MacCready's lady-love.

Hancock had liked Wedgwood well enough.

Still, two weeks later and with Pen in his arms, he could have shot the ghoul quite well enough too when Kelvin's voice came warily up the State House stairs, Pen's stomach baring against his as her shirt rode up her ribs.

"Boss? There's a strange ghoul out here."

Pen winced when Hancock raised an amused brow. She should have known to tell someone about her tag-along, they were a careful lot in Goodneighbor, especially lately. "It's fine, Kel," he shouted back, turning his head to make his voice travel and having to cough when Pen nibbled at his jaw. "It's Wedgwood."

"Uh, no, Wedgwood has him up against the wall."

They both frowned at the same time, Pen quicker on her feet as Hancock got dressed, the pair of them sprinting into the overcast sky to see a tall ghoul in dark leathers with his chest shoved against the bricks, Wedgwood having yanked the ghoul's arm up his back.

Pen kept her finger along the pistol's barrel, concern for Wedgwood tightening her spine, but she looked at him to get the lay of the land, and Hancock was all too happy to ask who the fuck had interrupted them. "What happened?"

Kelvin didn't look away from the strange ghoul; in fact, he was using Wedgwood as he would one of their own – Wedgwood was one of Pen's, which made allies of them all. "Newton noticed this one following them in."

"Not us," Wedgwood growled, twisting the ghoul's arm up another inch. "Her."

Hancock's eyes narrowed when Pen frowned in confusion, the delicious flush from earlier unfortunately disappearing. "You know 'im, Wedgwood?"

Wedgwood shook his head, grip still painfully tight around some battered combat armour. "No, but he walked straight past me when he figured Pen went inside."

Hancock's scowl mirrored theirs, and he reminded himself to give Wedgwood a drink for being so quick off the mark. Rather than give the stranger the satisfaction of freedom, Hancock simply asked his back, "What d'you want?"

"I thought I recognised her, couldn't tell from far—" The ghoul cut off with a grunt when he tried to turn around and ended up with Kelvin's gun in his face.

"Face the wall, answer the mayor."

Wedgwood had smoothly moved aside for Kelvin, just as Kelvin had slid into place to form a wall of flesh between the stranger and them. Hancock made another mental note: buy Wedgwood that drink _and_ ask him where he had learned to play nicely with others.

A team of others that shot Pen mildly panicked looks when she took a tentative step closer, her brow furrowed and only one hand on her pistol, her attention on a thatch of gingery hair atop the ghoul's scalp.

Hancock watched all of them, watched Kelvin war with an instinct that told him to move aside for Pen, watched Wedgwood scowl at her in clear disapproval, and he watched Pen, whose head tilted as she tried to meet the strange ghoul's gaze, his cheek smushed against the bricks.

The other one lifted in a surprised smile.

"Vaultie! I thought it was you!"

Pen huffed a disbelieving laugh, waving off the two still breathing down the ghoul's neck. Wedgwood gave one more warning squeeze, but then stepped back as asked, fingers immediately going to his assault rifle. Kelvin, however, didn't even move, and he wouldn't.

Hancock caught Pen's vaguely irritated look at his guard, but it was exasperated affection, the same look she then levelled at Hancock.

"This is the first person I saw after I came out of the vault," Pen explained, her smile widening when the ghoul inclined his head at her – rather arrogantly ignoring the gun still in his face. "He gave me some food, told me the date, and saw me to Sanctuary."

Kelvin nudged his gun a little closer, frown growing. "You left her there?"

"I asked him to go," Pen answered with another roll of her eyes, and the strange ghoul gave a foolhardy grin.

"Hey, I'm used to strong women telling me what to do, and vaulties don't know when to quit."

Pen gave him a grateful smile, and Hancock waited for another two breaths of looking the stranger over. "Okay."

Kelvin lowered his gun immediately, shrugging unabashedly when Pen gave him a good-natured glare.

"Favouritism," she murmured, and Kelvin tried his best not to smile.

It didn't work.

The ghoul stared at all of them, at Wedgwood who settled into place at Pen's flank, mirroring Kelvin at Hancock's, but he smiled at Pen as if pleasantly surprised she was still alive and kicking.

Hancock wasn't sure he liked the smile, and his face must have shown it because Pen looked between them and reminded, "I might not be here if not for him."

The ghoul gave Hancock a look that said, _see? She might not be here._

Hancock gave an indifferent shrug, knowing that his people – and Wedgwood – would keep an eye on the newcomer. Hancock's arm sneaked out to Pen's waist, who leaned happily into him. "Then I suppose you're welcome here."

The ghoul looked more at home at the bar's front door than in the bar itself; he had taken one too many hits to the face, his irradiated skin a mess of wrinkles and scars. Still, his laugh was friendly enough, and it made Pen smile.

"The name's Charon."

Hancock didn't give a shit what his name was, all he wanted was a drink in his hand and Pen in his lap.

Sometimes it just wasn't worth getting up from bed.

 

* * *

 

Pen left broken-hearted ghouls in her wake.

At least, that's what it looked like two nights later in Third Rail, Hancock slumped in his favourite chair, Wedgwood slumped on a bar stool, and Charon slumped against a wall with Ham – apparently he felt comfortable at the door.

Pen had gone to Diamond City with the next caravan, planning on looping back with Nick in two weeks. It was a long time, longer because Pen had left a grumpy Wedgwood behind her, and the ghoul's fretting made Hancock realise quite how much he trusted Pen.

Although perhaps _trust_ didn't quite cover it. Belief, he had a fuck off amount of belief in Pen, belief that she would kick ass and take names.

Belief that she would find her way back to him.

Of course, she was still going hunting for a big, bad, boogie monster – and the Commonwealth had a fuckton of those – so he was still a little worried, as he always was when she left, even if it was with a lingering kiss and a hushed promise that had turned even his ears pink.

It eased his mind somewhat to know that Nick was going with her, if only because the synth was dependable enough to throw himself in the fire just to get Pen out of it, and so they would both come back to him, safe and sound, if a little charred.

Wedgwood didn't know enough yet, he wasn't privy to their secrets, and a ghoul at Pen's side would only make people think it was him, which might put her in more danger than she already was, so the ghoul guard was pouting into another bottle of beer and uttering curses nobody had heard before.

Except Hancock, who had heard the odd _bloody hell_ from Pen's mouth once or twice.

Charon, however, was just bored. He was waiting on some news from out of town, apparently, and Goodneighbor was the most _familiar_ place he had come across – whatever that meant.

So the three ghouls waited, and three became two when Charon took off with a promise to return, and two became one when Wedgwood hitched a bounty with MacCready, leaving Hancock at Fahrenheit's tender mercies as he wrote and rewrote trade agreements for Bunker Hill.

Well, that and the odd scavenging hunt when Fahrenheit started throwing things at him – normally Jet inhalers, sometimes knives – and he had spent a couple of fun evenings on the roof with MacCready, taking pot shots at mole rats outside the walls.

Inevitably though, one of the Bunker Hill traders would come by, and Hancock would remember that a deal needed to be set up to stop Daisy complaining about lost profit.

Stockton was tricky, his traders more so; Goodneighbor had to be careful, and specific, and boring, and _fuck_ he missed Pen. He missed the way she curled into him when she slept, he missed the way she had started looking at him askance when she thought he wasn't looking, he missed the way her mouth curved when she said his name.

He missed the whispered promise that still burned his ears, because _damn_ his kitten had a mouth on her.

In fact, two weeks later when he had escaped to Kleo's just to get out of rewriting another fucking trade agreement, he could barely contain his excitement when Kelvin called out a happy greeting over the wall.

Hancock slowed to a stop when he saw Nick arrive on his lonesome. Same tattered jacket, same tattered face, same tattered cigarette peeking from his wry smile.

"Well, don't look so happy to see me, John, it's only been six months," Nick drawled, and Hancock closed the gap between them in something of a hurry, barely noticing the long-familiar slide of metal as they gripped forearms.

It definitely wasn't worry that had him asking, "Is she okay?"

Nick's mouth curved, knowing and teasing in one. "Yeah, she said you'd worry."

Hancock spared his friend a scowl and went for an entirely _not worried_ shrug of tense shoulders. "And she said _you_ were interestin', I wouldn't believe anythin' she says. Where is she?"

"Beats me, she was gonna drop me at DC on the way here but somethin' came up in Cambridge apparently."

It said something that Pen was the one who dropped the synth detective off, but his face must have fallen, because Nick grinned. "Cheer up, she didn't leave you empty-handed."

Nick held something out and Hancock didn't quite understand what it was even when he took it.

It was a letter.

"Should've seen her when she realised there weren't any ballpoint pens," Nick added, but Hancock ignored what he didn't understand and tightened his fingers around the ragged fold of paper. "You gonna tell me what it says?"

At that, Hancock did glance up under his brows. "Like you ain't already fuckin' read it?"

Nick spread his hands, entirely unashamed. "It's part of the job, John."

"Yeah? Well, do me a favour an' detect your way over to Daisy, she's been livin' off caravan gossip for so long I think she's gone brahmin."

"I heard that," Daisy growled, but when she saw Nick standing there, she turned into all charms and sweetness. "Why, detective, it _has_ been a while."

"I can never tell," Nick answered, voice a low rumble, "time's meaningless without you."

Hancock watched them walk off, flirting harmlessly just for the fun of it, and had to grin. Grin, and ache a little, until he flicked open the letter.

Pen missed him, that was the most important part, the rest was about a tale she and Nick had heard about the Slog, something about drifters attacking unarmed ghouls.

_Shit._

Those odd reports were spreading far and wide, it wasn't just in the south anymore. He and Fahrenheit had been half hoping it _was_ raiders, because at least they were easier to rout out, to push back; nameless drifters with no obvious markings was like defending against ghosts.

It was just as Pen had said, it was _fear_ that started wars, fear was the precursor to shit hitting the fan, and yet those ghosts didn't even have a fucking banner to fly under, no whispers or war cries, just the constant attacks on traders. Now it seemed they had turned on the ghouls too, and the ones at the Slog had been the ones who had helped make his favourite blueberry Mentats.

The letter went into a pocket, attention drawn by more shouts at the wall, more traders, bloodied and bruised with tales of attacks on the road. It happened again and again over the coming days, until it was too easy to fear strangers. All newcomers were given a thorough inspection at the gates, but even that hadn't stopped a fight breaking out after Delisle had found two drifters staring up at Hancock's balcony in the dead of night.

Delisle had held her own, kept a few of the teeth she had knocked loose – only one of them hers – and the drifters had been kicked out. Fahrenheit had ripped the Watch a new one that night, saying they needed people to question, needed answers, needed to stop jumping at their own fucking shadows.

Stockton came through; everything was agreed as long as Hancock promised to help keep the roads clear for the traders. New patrols were set up, <span title="not literally">new guards were blooded in</span> – and Hancock idly wished for Wedgwood to return, just for another capable set of hands.

Of everything, Hancock wanted Pen— _needed_ Pen—for the support, and for the support of the people. She had been right, the settlements were important, they gave the traders somewhere to stay, they gave the people somewhere to defend.

The Minutemen didn't seem like such an encroaching thing right now, and he was starting to think about drafting a trade agreement for them, too.

There wasn't quite enough Jet in the world for that realisation.

Another week passed, Wedgwood rolled in and out, so did MacCready, both of them asking about Pen, the latter bringing questions from Nick.

If Hancock started to worry, he made sure nobody knew.

Fahrenheit shipped in his blueberry Mentats, and he realised that she did know.

The fourth week had passed when he heard greetings at the wall, greetings that turned to shouts, to steps thundering up his stairs, and Newton falling into Hancock's room, face bloody and fists scuffed.

"We found somethin' out on patrol, Fahr said you're gonna wanna see."

He had been sprawled on the sofa and coming down off of a high, so he went with a frown, half hoping it was a Minuteman, half wondering if they were teasing him, if it was Pen.

If she was _home_.

Hancock gave Newton a side-eye, the question at the tip of his tongue as they stepped outside, and then he looked up. Looked up to see the Minuteman hat he hadn't seen in so long, a bullet hole in one side of it, and his inhale felt like shattered glass.

The distance seemed to disappear in half the time, and Hancock leapt, his fists curling into shirt lapels, adrenaline tearing though his body, and a pair of sunglasses bounced into the dirt.

Hancock threw the wearer into the ground with a roar.

"Where the _fuck_ is she?"

There was a stranger wearing Pen's hat at his feet, and Hancock wanted to tear him apart. His vision threatened to blur, his heart in his throat and a question in his teeth, and through it all was rage and fury and _fear._

It was a man who looked up, nondescript but for a shock of black hair that gleamed too brightly in the sun, but his face was clean-shaven, not a single bristle on a face that looked up from the ground as if he had chosen to sprawl there. "Who?"

"Pen," Hancock demanded, teeth bared as he stood over the man bound at the wrists, his people ranging about him like lions around a kill. "You're wearing her fuckin' hat."

The man blinked, his expression painfully neutral. "Never heard of her."

The corners of Hancock's eyes went dark. He growled, his fingers clawing for the man's throat before he was stopped by a palm against his chest; Fahrenheit, pushing her way between them.

"John, enough," she muttered, eyes steely. "We won't get answers if he can't speak, we've been wanting this."

Clarity tried to wash through the fire. Yes, wanting, wanting someone to question, to _interrogate,_ and yet if anyone else had tried to stop him he might have killed them, but it was Fahrenheit, and she knew him, she would know what to do, she would know what to do about the rage.

She would know what to do about the terrifying wave of despair that threatened to topple it, because it had been _too long,_ and Pen wasn't back, Pen wasn't _home._

Hancock dragged his gaze to hers, and something shouted through his eyes, something he couldn't say aloud but inwardly he screamed, and it was Fahrenheit, so she knew.

_Please, Fahr._

Hancock grit his teeth until it hurt, his fingers clenched into fists. "Get 'im downstairs."

Fahrenheit leaned ever so slightly into his shoulder, and her decisive nod passed the control back to him. "Done."

Hancock watched them go, watched them regard the stranger with rabid looks on their faces, Delisle with her gun at the man's spine and Newton's aimed at his kneecaps. Wedgwood had returned at some point, and now he blended in with the others, as angry as the rest of them – the ghoul didn't even know it was Pen's hat, all he knew is that they were all angry, and so he would stand with them.

It made Hancock like him a little bit more.

There was a crunch under his foot, and when he lifted his boot, it was to see the fallen sunglasses in pieces. The sight pained him, he had said he would do as much to Pen's once.

Now he just wished he could see her wearing them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who played FO3, forgive me for teasing you with Charon, he'll breeze in and out - he's taken to his newfound freedom quite nicely. For everyone else, forgive me for teasing you with thoughts of Hancock ~~with his hand down his trousers, backlit by a rad-forked sky and the low rumble of thunder~~. Ahahabye.


	15. Shadow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, life decided to trip me up and then I had to work out some major kinks in the next behemoth of a chapter - it's been the bane of my days, won't lie. As always, your comments make it all worthwhile, thank you <3

> What's left but ash and burn?  
>  No last pale light to follow  
>  Along here, to find my way  
>  I'll catch up with you one day
> 
> And this old death is crooked in the truth  
>  I played your game but now I think I'm through  
>  I know what you look like  
>  And I'll see you before long
> 
> \- Ben Nichols, _'This Old Death'_

It had been a while since they had used this room, the one in the basement of the State House, behind the thick, scratched wooden door and the heavy-duty bolts. The shackles hung limply from the walls, a few specks of blood still on the cold floor. Even the lighting seemed harsher down here.

The stranger was tied to a chair in the centre of the room, ankles cuffed and wrists tied behind him, and yet he kept his back straight, his mouth stubborn.

Hancock didn't like him.

Fahrenheit's sigh rang around the stone walls when he took up the same line of questioning, the same questions getting different fucking answers every time he asked them, as if they were being led in circles.

"Wait," the man said suddenly. "What did you say she looked like?"

Hancock leapt at the question, hope a flickering flame in his chest as he listed off Pen's particulars, and the man gave thoughtful nods for every detail, stoking the fire higher and higher until it blazed like a signal fire atop a ravaged mountain.

"Oh!... Never seen her."

Hancock punched him in the jaw, and despite the bruises already blossoming across his weirdly plain skin, he simply met Hancock's glare with a measure of satisfaction. It made Hancock want to punch him again, made him want to mark a face that seemed determined not to show anything, not to _tell_ them anything.

"You're an easy one to rile," the man commented, a drawl to his voice and a sense of smugness to every word. "She owe you caps or something?"

"I love her," Hancock growled, and when the man's brow twitched ever so slightly, Fahrenheit slid him an exasperated glance in the following silence.

 _Smooth moves, jackass,_ her expression said, _he's never going to tell us anything now._

 _He doesn't know shit_ , Hancock replied through his glower, _let's just kill him_.

Fahrenheit shrugged, but something odd happened before Hancock could slip a blade into his hand. The man had watched them, and apparently followed the entire conversation when no one else had ever been able to.

"Woah, woah, hang on," he interrupted, but his tone never went past casual, as if he was strolling a street in the sunshine and not in the basement with a ghoul and his rust-haired shadow, both with more knives than fingers.

Maybe the knives had encouraged him, because he finally broke his vow of giving them absolutely fuck all with a sigh that seemed a little too forced.

"We don't call her that name."

Hancock felt like a brahmin with a carrot on a stick, doggedly chasing it and getting nowhere, so he snarled a reply. "We?"

The man's gaze slipped to Fahrenheit, and Hancock thought it was because she held the sway – and the most knives – but then it came back to him with another sigh, this one seemingly genuine.

"Look, I'm not good with names, okay? I can't remember who's supposed to know."

It sounded like another of his not-answers, the words like fucking white noise and the guy's face infuriating. "I swear to fuck, I'm gonna kick the shit out of you if you don't start makin' some sense."

The man tilted his head to the side, emphasising the swollen purple of his jaw and just _asking_ Hancock to hit it. "Wow, you are really not what I expected."

Fahrenheit snorted, her stance lazy where Hancock was murder. "Really? Normally this is what everyone expects."

The man shrugged, still ever so comfortable despite the bruises, the potential beatings, the possibility of death and a nameless grave that Hancock couldn't _wait_ to piss on. "We get our stories from different people."

Fahrenheit's body language suddenly changed, and Hancock had known her long enough that it very slightly dragged him from his anger. "What?"

Fahrenheit uttered something very simple, and very fucking complicated. "The Memory Den."

The man relaxed immediately. "Oh, you do know, good. That makes my life a lot easier – which, considering it might end soon, is great news!"

Hancock debated backhanding him to shut his stupid sarcasm up, but mentioning the Memory Den only meant one thing, and it took a long while to get his head around it. "You're with the Railroad?"

The man's arms twitched as if he was trying to spread his hands in a dramatic flourish. "Surprise."

"So where the fuck is Pen?"

The man slowly looked between him and Fahrenheit, Fahrenheit who was giving him a look that said he really should have cottoned on by now.

"Surprise?" The man repeated himself slowly before returning to his usual ridiculous speaking speed. "That really shouldn't be a surprise by now. It's practically spelled out for you."

Hancock breathed heavily, brow a constant frown of confusion, but at least his anger was starting to fade away. "You're… with the Railroad?"

The man just looked straight at Fahrenheit now. "I don't want to say surprise again in case he punches me."

Fahrenheit shrugged, arms crossed idly over her chest. "Go for it."

"Surprise."

Hancock punched him, and Fahrenheit gave a bland smile. "I never said I'd stop him."

The man tilted his head, apparently unfazed by the betrayal or the blood that started seeping from his nose.

"Fair point."

 

* * *

 

"Breathe, John."

Hancock nodded distractedly, his breaths still coming short and sharp until Fahrenheit narrowed her eyes in a very clear threat. It was one he didn't doubt she'd follow through on, so he took one breath, two, and the third held too long, just as Fahrenheit held his gaze until he deflated, lungs and shoulders both.

At least the anger stopped him feeling empty.

"What now?"

Fahrenheit looked towards the stairs to the basement, eyes steely as she looked past Newton's scuffed fists and Delisle's necklace of teeth. Everyone was on high alert, the Watch had closed in on the State House and the people were readying their guns. Things had been rough in the Commonwealth for months now, but they still didn't know whether the man downstairs had anything to do with it.

All they knew was that he knew about Pen, and for now, that was enough.

Fahrenheit met his eye again, steady and sure when he felt like ripping the place apart. "We're going to go downstairs and ask questions, and you're going to—" If she said stay calm, he was going to flip his shit. "—get him to talk. He gave up too quickly."

Hancock raised a brow, but every second he spoke with Fahrenheit was helping him to focus, helping him to lose the ragged edge to his fury, to his fear. "Hardly his fault, we were gonna kill him."

Fahrenheit weighed her head to the side, matter-of-fact in all things. "Not straight away."

She had a point, no matter how many times Hancock had moved, the man had never even flinched, a bit of pain wasn't likely to get answers from him, and yet he had given them anyway.

Hancock met Fahrenheit's gaze at the same time she looked back to him, but he spoke first. "He needs us."

It was a worrying thought, especially when the Railroad tended to pick fights with the Institute; and Goodneighbor had been doing pretty well pretending to be a ne'er-do-well town that _certainly_ didn't have any business with freeing synths, no sir-ee.

Hancock had felt as if he stood on a volcano when he stood above Covenant's compound, but they were just small fry, tiny cogs in a massive machine. Now, with a Railroad operative at his door, his feet started to burn.

"He needs something, something we have," Fahrenheit murmured. Hancock rolled back on his heels, Fahrenheit's cool logic leeching away the anger as she thought aloud. "What do we have that the Railroad doesn't?"

Hancock cast about the room, the answer seemingly obvious. "Guns, people?"

Fahrenheit made a dismissive noise with her teeth, scowl darkening. "They have guns, you saw the scorch on Kelvin after that white-haired bitch flamed him."

Hancock shrugged, the die down of adrenaline making him itchy, itchy to find Pen, itchy to get his fingers around the neck of that idiot downstairs. "Yeah, but Kel was doing recon, he was on their turf, they can afford to be loud there. We can go anywhere, be seen anywhere, and it ain't odd to see us."

"Muscle work for the Railroad," Fahrenheit mused, a sneer at her lips. "I don't like it."

Neither did he, but it was all they had to go on, and he needed something, _anything,_ anything to feel like they were making progress. Pen could hold her own, he knew that, and it helped ease him off that looming ledge somewhat – although the Railroad wasn't just a ledge, it was a damn pit. "I ain't drawin' up another fuckin' trade agreement."

Fahrenheit smirked when he tried not to smile. "You fucking are."

"I'm fuckin' not," he laughed, and it felt a little easier to do, easy without the tightness in his chest and the rage in his veins. Fahrenheit looked down to smile, but it faded when she looked up again.

"He _will_ tell us about Pen."

It was a promise, one backed up by the simmering anger in Goodneighbor, by Daisy throwing threats around to every contact she had, by MacCready reneging on a bounty so he could update Nick in Diamond City, and by Wedgwood who had taken up arms alongside them.

The people were coming together.

"I don't think this is just about us," Hancock announced, and watched Fahrenheit chew on her cheek. "I think you were right."

Fahrenheit gave an acknowledging nod, as if they weren't facing danger in every corner right now. "Often am, about what this time?"

"Pen thinks—" Hancock broke off to start the sentence again when it felt like his throat was closing, that same fear and fury threatening to come up and choke him again. "Pen thinks we need help."

"Your damsel's smart," Fahrenheit murmured, and she gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Makes sense to start over there, I guess."

"Yeah, that's what I thought," he answered, pleased to drop into their half conversations without the stranger around to eavesdrop on them. "Still, never thought it would be—"

"Tell me about it, thought we'd start with—"

"Maybe we have," Hancock finished, inclining his head downstairs as Fahrenheit gave a contemplative nod.

She led the way to the basement, the pair of them sharing a look before Hancock gave Wedgwood a little jerk of his head. It drew the ghoul away, Fahrenheit sliding into the gap next to Kelvin.

Kelvin and Wedgwood had become something like friends since their efforts against Charon, and it was good to see Kelvin joking a bit more, the pair of them laughing and picking up each other's tricks.

Hancock heard Wedgwood following him up the stairs, the ghoul's tread slightly heavier than his own, but he waited until they were guarded by Newton and Delisle before he finally spoke.

"I need you to do me a favour."

Wedgwood's eyes narrowed, affront in their dark depths. "Why, you trying to get rid of me?"

Once, the answer would have been a resounding _yes_ ; if it had been about the Railroad and nothing more, he would have tried to get the ghoul out of the picture for the sake of Goodneighbor, for the sake of the synths. But now there was more at stake, now the answer was _no,_ because Wedgwood was one of them, and Hancock needed him.

Hancock sighed, and almost didn't believe the words coming out of his mouth. "I need you to go see Preston Garvey." Wedgwood's eyes widened, and Hancock could read the shock in them, his laugh a tired thing. "Yeah, I know, didn't think this day would come either."

Wedgwood inclined his head, but of all things, the respect on his face seemed to grow. "You're making the right call, Preston's a good guy."

It was Hancock's turn to be surprised. Wedgwood was the kind of guy who got shit done with a gun – and a few of them at that – he didn't seem like the Minutemen type. "You know 'im?"

"No, Pen told me so," Wedgwood answered plainly. "I trust her judgement."

Hancock's smile felt painfully bittersweet. "Yeah, well, that's why I'm trustin' you with this."

Wedgwood offered a smile of his own, but it had a rather staggering amount of sympathy. It was an _old_ smile, one of memory and loss, and Hancock realised quite what it meant for Pen to laugh at the ghoul's jokes, the ones nobody else seemed to understand.

Wedgwood wasn't just pre-war, he was from the same place as Pen.

"I'll be quick," Wedgwood promised, but it didn't matter about Garvey, it mattered that the ghoul would be back to stand alongside them, returning to the familiar to fight for what was right.

Hancock saw it then, part of the reason why Wedgwood stuck so solidly to Pen's side.

She reminded him of home.

"I know," Hancock answered simply.

Wedgwood stuck his hand out, that same old-timey charm in the gesture, but Hancock was grateful for the effort. He would feel the ghoul's absence, for all it was only a handful of days he had been with them, but Pen liked him, and so did Hancock.

Delisle gave the ghoul a clap on the shoulder, their nods stony faced as Wedgwood turned to leave to the sounds of farewells.

Time made strange allies of them all.

Although not as strange as the potential one downstairs.

Hancock took a single steadying breath before he returned to the basement, the air a veritable weight as Kelvin glared holes into perfectly peaceful eyes. Fahrenheit, of course, was merely content to watch the blood drip from nose to floor.

"He calls himself Deacon," Kelvin announced, distaste clear on his face. "Must think he's some sort of holy man."

Deacon shrugged his shoulders as well as he could considering his arms were still tied behind him. " _Father_ seemed a bit egomaniac."

Fahrenheit snorted without humour. "Right, because you're all humanitarians."

"Synthitarians?" Hancock offered, to the twitch of Kelvin's lip.

Deacon didn't even try to make a joke this time, he just looked Hancock squarely in the eyes and replied quietly, "People."

That was a loaded word at the best of times, but here, in this town, in this very room, it had the threat of a nuke and the livelihoods of thousands, of hundreds of thousands.

"Okay, Kel," Hancock murmured, not breaking Deacon's gaze. "We've got this."

"I'll see if anyone's heard of our holy man," Kelvin murmured on his way out of the door, and Hancock spared a moment to be grateful for the people who surrounded him, for friends, family.

A family that was threatened, and by a man who seemed to know too much.

Fahrenheit waited until the heavy door thunked shut before asking casually, "Does Desdemona know?"

They both watched Deacon for a flicker of recognition, but he simply shrugged, those knowing eyes closing on a blink. "I only know what they tell me."

Hancock and Fahrenheit shared a look.

_Lie._

"I'm not lying."

Fahrenheit flicked Deacon a glance that told him to shut up, and the operative almost seemed to give a glimmer of a smile at the threat.

There weren't many people in the world that smiled at Fahrenheit's threats, and even fewer who survived unscathed.

Hancock was still nursing a nasty bruise on his ribs from the last time, and he had gotten off easy, but not so easy that it didn't burn to lean against the wall, arms crossing his chest as he picked up the questioning baton.

Good cop, bad cop, cut-'em-'cross-the-throat cop; it was a well-played game to them.

"Maybe you know a lot, maybe you don't," Hancock murmured, stance angled to show the knife hilts popping over his belt, "but you know about Pen, an' that's what we give a shit about."

"You keep our tapes out in the open," Deacon said suddenly, and Hancock wanted to bite his tongue and snarl at the same time. Those little yellow tapes to follow the Freedom Trail ended up everywhere, but no one actually used them, no one genuinely believed you could follow a red line around town – amidst raiders and super mutants and synths and fuck knew what else.

Those tapes were simply a sign of _hope_ for a lot of people, just as the neon lettering on Goodneighbor's front door was a sign of hope for some, and for others it was Diamond City's green walls. For the rest, it was the rumours of the Minutemen, of a blonde with a sniper rifle and a promise of help.

People needed hope, but at the end of the day, a tape was just a tape and walls were just walls. It was as Pen had said, people needed people, and Hancock needed Pen, and he would rip the Railroad apart just to get to her.

Hancock's mouth twisted into an uncomfortable line. "We don't hide 'em, no."

"I know," Deacon answered, that smug tone back in his voice, as if he had the upper hand – whilst those hands were tied behind a chair in a bloodied basement in the heart of a town known for its cutthroat ways.

"You think we're gonna be surprised that you've been snooping around?" Fahrenheit asked sceptically, her tone deliberately arrogant. "Please, you're not the only ones with spies."

"Bullshit," Deacon said succinctly, so Fahrenheit simply shrugged.

"How's Glory?"

There was barely a beat of silence as Fahrenheit named the Railroad's white-haired muscle, but then Deacon knew how to play the game too. "Still showing off the scar from your guy, he knifed her good."

"Kel wasn't trying to kill her," Fahrenheit answered nonchalantly, and they could afford to be nonchalant, because Kelvin had come back okay, had come back with a scorch on one side of his face and a smile on the other, had come back with answers, with a desire to go out there again, to _hunt._

"How's Ham Radio," Deacon asked, and suddenly those clever eyes didn't seem quite so clever. "He had good reception up on that roof."

It felt like a whiplash, like scorching heat and an empty stomach, because there had been a time they couldn't afford to be nonchalant, and Deacon didn't even understand what he had said.

"Ham doesn't do recon anymore," Hancock growled, and felt his anger return like wolves to their alpha, ready to strike, to kill.

 _John,_ Fahrenheit's glance pierced through his thoughts, but he knew her just as well as she knew him, he knew she held her laughter in the muscle of her left cheek, and he knew she held her anger in the bone of her jaw.

Fahrenheit's jaw was damn tight.

 _It's him,_ he replied with a lift of his head, a shake of a furred ruff as it closed in on cornered prey. There was a hunger for blood in his veins, a hunger for retribution, for Ham, for Pen, and Hancock was all too happy to kill for it. _He's Desdemona's second._

"No, I'm not."

They ignored him, Fahrenheit's own anger on a barely held leash, and yet it rang at a counterpoint to Hancock's, allowed him to concentrate with a deadly focus, allowed him to bare his teeth in a smile when all he wanted to do was bite into the ignorant fucker in front of him.

He hadn't given Pen the whole story when he had told her about the time they had sent someone on the Freedom Trail, Ham had asked him not to repeat it, not to _remember,_ but it was impossible to forget.

Two weeks Ham had been tied to that antenna, two weeks of sun exposure on a ghoul who didn't look as if he burned, two weeks of silence because he refused to say who had sent him, because Goodneighbor was vulnerable after Vic's death and the Railroad were getting cocky.

And yet, the worst part of it all was that they couldn't blame the Railroad entirely, not for back then, not when it was only him and Fahrenheit and a scant few stragglers to their cause. One a merchant who dealt in bottlecaps instead of kills, one a kid who kept teeth on her necklace, and another a ghoul who had spent both his lives at the barroom door.

"I should've gone," Hancock had hissed, Fahrenheit's jaw a tight, _tight_ thing beside him, beside Ham's bed, a makeshift IV in his arm and the shades drawn low, low enough to hide the raw redness of his skin.

They had paid through the nose for a discreet doctor, they would pay twice to keep Ham alive.

"He wanted to go," Fahrenheit had replied, her voice forced to a whisper but still so very loud, loud with anger, with guilt.

"It doesn't matter, he didn't know _how_ —"

How to cope, how to come back, to come back from the edge and hunger for more. They all had their jobs, their roles, their _fits_ in this world. Ham had known his, but Hancock hadn't, he hadn't been named mayor then, but he had still failed his people.

They had sworn it would never happen again, they would never send settlers when they needed soldiers. Fahrenheit had started recruiting, and Hancock had sat by Ham's bedside until he woke up, until he could see properly again, until he could get a word in edge-ways around Hancock's apologising.

_This'll be the last time I say it, John, but shut the fuck up._

They hadn't lost Ham, hadn't lost anyone as they made the State House their own, made _Goodneighbor_ their own, and now it belonged to them all, just as Hancock did. They were his people and he would not fail them again, he would not fail _Pen._

For once, Deacon pulled back a little, his head tilting a fraction and his hands flared behind him, imploring, imploring two people who would happily string him up for an injury he didn't even know he had committed.

"Okay, I'm sensing tension—"

"Talk."

Whether it was Fahrenheit's strange silence or Hancock's completely flat demand, Deacon talked.

"We have a leak."

Hancock's eyes narrowed, mouth parting twice before he could think of anything other than copious swear words. "Are you bullshittin' me?"

"No— Wait, don't hit me, I can prove it," Deacon interrupted himself quickly, even though Hancock hadn't moved – he couldn't say the same for Fahrenheit though. "We thought it was you."

"Why the fuck would it be us," Hancock asked in exasperated anger. "You think it's fuckin' easy gettin' people in an' out of Goodneighbor?"

"I got in easy enough," Deacon replied, back to his usual cocky attitude for the half second it took Fahrenheit to shift her body weight. "Wait. Okay, I know you saw me, maybe once, maybe a couple of times, but the point is, people can get in. Who else knows about the Memory Den?"

"You're lookin' at 'em," Hancock lied, but Deacon sighed as if all his worst fears had been confirmed.

"That's what I realised, I couldn't find out anything, _anything,_ and places like this aren't exactly good at keeping secrets."

 _You'd be surprised,_ Hancock thought, but didn't dare say it to Fahrenheit with Deacon in the room, not with his uncanny ability to eavesdrop on them.

"What's your leak got to do with us?" Fahrenheit asked quietly, and it was Hancock's turn to call her with a glance, holding her gaze until she relaxed the slightest amount.

It was then that Hancock realised Deacon was watching him the same way someone watched a caged animal suddenly freed, watched _him_ instead of Fahrenheit, and Hancock felt unease growing in his gut.

Felt it fester.

"The drifters," Deacon explained, voice deliberately calm as if it would somehow lessen the sting. "The ones attacking traders from all over? They're synths."

"That's nothin' new," Hancock grumbled. "Institute's always findin' ways to fuck us."

"No, they're not from the Institute," Deacon replied, and the silence seemed to snap in surprise. "They're from here."

"What the fuck," came twice, and Deacon let loose another sigh.

"At first we thought it was just shit luck, that the ones you'd wiped had turned to raiders, to the Gunners, but it's worse than that," Deacon trailed off in a mutter, bruised jaw sliding to the side before he continued. "Someone knows they've been here, to the Memory Den, knows they're impressionable, and they get to them before we do."

"This is why we have meeting points," Fahrenheit answered, almost a hiss. "Why _you_ have dead drops."

"Have you ever had your memory wiped," Deacon asked, a hint of defensive anger finally starting to rise in his voice. "It leaves them lost, leaves them blank slates for whoever comes along, we can't keep tabs on all of them. They want to live their lives, and we try to let them."

"So what," Fahrenheit mused, jaw still tense, "they're taken by slavers?" Deacon weighed his head in agreement, but Fahrenheit still couldn't get her head around something. "Pen's not an idiot, she wouldn't have gone in without telling us anything, without back up—"

"We weren't supposed to get attacked."

Fahrenheit looked straight at him, and Hancock blinked, blinked and realised why Deacon was watching him so warily, realised why Pen hadn't come back, realised why his next breath didn't come when it was supposed to, why he felt _sick._

"Is she okay?"

Deacon looked him square in the eye, Fahrenheit a non-entity when Hancock stood on the edge of a very thin blade, stood at the extent of a very short leash.

"I don't know."

Fahrenheit's hand landed on his arm before he could even finish the movement, but they all knew Deacon would have been dead by the end of it if Fahrenheit hadn't stopped him.

"Answers first, John, we can crucify him afterwards."

"I'm gonna hang you from the balcony," Hancock promised, the threat like a noose around Deacon's neck.

"Fine, I don't care, I have people in there too, you aren't the only one in this," Deacon replied, more anger tinting his words, but he was wrong, and Hancock knew it; not about his people, not because he didn't care about his very inevitable death, but because Deacon didn't have half of his fucking heart in the hands of slavers.

Because Deacon hadn't spent the last four weeks as if half of him was _missing._

Fahrenheit didn't let go of his arm, and it was a physical anchor as he tried to listen to her words, tried to make sense of the insensible. "Why's it taken so long to hear anything?"

"She sent messages before the attack but I didn't know if I could trust you—"

Fahrenheit stepped back, permission and encouragement in one, and Hancock snarled, that festering in his gut turning to a boil. He reached for a knife before he could take another breath, brought it to point at dark eyes that stared defiantly into his.

Pen had trusted him, and Deacon had broken that trust, so now Hancock would break him.

"I had people to protect," Deacon said tightly. "So did you, don't pretend you wouldn't have done the same."

"If you have people," Fahrenheit interrupted, but her own fingers playing about her knife blades, knuckles taut as she spoke, "why'd you fucking leave her there?"

"What do you think we've been doing? I didn't _want_ to come here, I didn't _want_ to find out we had a leak, but we don't have enough numbers, and… The slavers have recall codes," Deacon replied, the faintest hint of grit in his tone, as if every word pained him. "It's not just our leak, it's the Institute's too."

Even Hancock had to wince at that, had to waver. Fahrenheit turned on a foot, fingers squeezing her temples as she bowed her head. "Fuck."

"Yeah." Deacon gave a barely perceptible nod, but his spine was not as straight as it had been. "We don't know which ones, but we have a lot of synths in our teams, it's not worth the risk."

Hancock wanted to grab him by the throat and squeeze, wanted to tell him that Pen was worth more than every single one of them, but it wouldn't accomplish anything.

Not yet, anyway.

 _He's done,_ Hancock's slow blink said, and Fahrenheit's tense shoulders shrugged in agreement.

"I can help," Deacon interrupted, correctly reading their silent conversation again. "Without me, you'll never follow the signs, the trail marks."

Fahrenheit's laugh was scornful. "You think we'll just bring you with us?"

"Pen did."

Hancock shared a glance with Fahrenheit, but it cut off halfway, cut off with a snarl that rang around the room and both Fahrenheit and Deacon moved a barely perceptible centimetre of surprise when Hancock lunged forwards, teeth bared in the face of the man who had seen Pen last.

"And where the fuck is she now?"

Deacon met him stare for stare, and Hancock saw another faint flicker in those odd, sightless eyes, but this one, this one was different.

"I'll show you."

It was a promise, emotion from a man who didn't show it

"You let yourself get caught," Fahrenheit announced, forcibly calm now that she had a heading, had direction. "Why?"

Deacon looked like they were trying to pull his teeth out with every question, but when Fahrenheit cut the ties about his wrist, he gave a stiff shrug. "She told me to come here if anything happened," he answered, and looked to Hancock speculatively when Fahrenheit left the room. "I'm guessing she meant you."

"No, she meant all of us," Hancock replied roughly, and Deacon frowned very slightly.

"Why?"

Fahrenheit's return was heralded by her minigun, and Hancock had never been more pleased to see it. Rust-orange hair flattened under a bandolier passed over shoulders, and Fahrenheit met his eye as she had so many times over the years, steady and sure and saying exactly what he fucking needed.

"Because we're going to get her back."

 

* * *

 

Pen's shallow breaths stirred the dust, and it swirled in tiny little eddies in front of her, greys and browns and blacks.

It was too much to hope for that the browns were simply dirt, she knew it wasn't because she had seen red go brown before, she had seen scarlet go to burgundy, crimson to copper, claret to mud.

The colour of an old, irradiated penny.

Red, red was good, it was bad but it was better than brown. Red was the colour of fresh wounds, of bandaged wounds, of _salvageable_ wounds. Red was the colour of Nuka Cola, of sunsets, of a duster she hadn't yet worn, hadn't yet taken off.

There was blood in the dirt under her hands, and she almost thought she could taste the tang, the bitter patina of warm iron and salt, her tongue reflexively sweeping over her teeth, checking for damage.

There was a split in her lip down the lower left side, sore and stinging to the touch. It was her own fault, taking a corner too fast and not expecting the metal grill to block her path, her eyes squeezing shut as she tried not to yelp.

It might have gone unnoticed even if she had, there were others to mask it.

They cried, they all did. The new ones were loud, the old ones were quiet, and she wasn't sure which of them hurt more. The harsh screams or the harried whimpers, they were just a backdrop to the pain, a splitting of skin and the tearing of nails.

She had been here too long, the days blending into one another with only the growing hunger giving any indication of time, the hunger, the pain, the ache.

The reds were going brown, the browns were going hazy, and Pen was failing.

She could backtrack, she could walk if she could stand on the leg, the wet one, the drying one, the one going slowly brown. They would miss her soon, and she didn't want anyone to get hurt. It was why she hadn't left, there were others.

There were _people_ here.

There _had been_ people here.

Some of them stopped crying, some of them spoke, spoke to the one with a shaved head for some of the bread in his gloved hands, spoke until their throats were raw and their bellies full and then they moved from inside the cells to outside of them.

Some of them remembered, remembered a time before now, a time of hazy memories, of white walls, of code names, of plush seats and a screen of static. Some remembered names; Glory, Desdemona, Highrise, Amari.

_Hancock._

It was that one that had stopped her from giving up, it always was.

Pen rested her cheek against the dirt, wincing when her lip protested, when her leg protested, when her head screamed and so did someone else.

She was tired, she wanted to rest, rest here in this coffin of grey and brown, girders and ground.

An eye flickered open at a sound on a manufactured breeze, a holotape that said to observe and not interfere, _observe and not interfere, damn it, observe—_ stale air and stern voices, and something else.

_Please, no._

Pen clambered awkwardly to her knees, her elbows bending when her rifle scratched against the steel, and she watched a drop of red fall from her lip. It plopped into the dirt, stark and surprising, and then it sank, devoured by the ground, and the brown was all that was left.

Pen shook her head, hissing when it felt like discordant chimes, prayer balls that jangled around her skull, and she forced herself to shuffle forward, to keep going, to save what she couldn't prevent.

She would not be lost to the brown.

There was red on her horizon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a little recompense for taking so long, [here's a pic I drew of Pen!](http://comehitherashes.tumblr.com/post/152231924243/in-remembrance-of-the-great-war-that-hasnt)
> 
> So idk if I've made this up or if it's canon, but I was always under the impression that, after a synth left the Memory Den, they were either ~~stolen by Goodneighbor~~ brought into the Railroad as an agent, or (far more commonly) redirected unto the world to live a new life with new memories – and little/no recollection of the Memory Den/Railroad etc.


	16. Caesious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to split this into two chapters, and ~~do you know how hard it is to find other names for blue-grey that still apply to the chapter?~~ the next one still turned out to be a behemoth. Still, I managed to give Fahrenheit her minigun instead of a sword with an annoyingly similar name (damn it, Ret Pallies). Enjoy, this story arc has been a beast!

> I'll close your eyes so you can't see  
>  This very hour come and go with me  
>  Death I come to take the soul  
>  Leave the body and leave it cold
> 
> To drop the flesh up off the frame~  
>  Dirt and worm both have a claim
> 
> Won't you spare me over 'til another year?
> 
> \- Ralph Stanley, _'O, Death'_

It was a fucking odd procession.

The Commonwealth was chock-full of oddities, but nothing quite so odd as a ghoul mayor and a rust-haired shadow's entourage. At the rear stood a kid with a sniper rifle, but at the front was a Railroad operative being closely watched by a blue mohawk, and a guy in a brown leather jacket passing around cigarettes.

Them, and an assorted dozen of the Watch, who alternated between laughing loudly and keeping a weather eye on the horizon. They didn't march, they weren't soldiers, but they still sent things scurrying, dogs and drifters alike running for their dens at the sight of them.

The sun was setting, a haze of blood red on the ground, and every shift, every step, brought guns into the glare and knives into the glow.

Delisle had the throne whilst they were gone, with Daisy and Ham at her sides, and the people were hungry for blood. Goodneighbor was no settlement, it didn't have _settlers_ , it had fighters, brawlers, people used to clawing for their livelihoods, and the walls bristled with gun barrels as they left.

Kleo had been rigging missile launchers to the turrets, and Hancock didn't pity anyone who thought Goodneighbor had been left undefended.

Deacon had been trying to get out from under Newton's gun for the last half hour, but until Hancock gave the word, Deacon was under closer watch than one of those porn mags they had found in a box last year.

"You know I'm not the bad guy here, right?"

Fahrenheit looked over her shoulder to raise a brow, and Newton used it as encouragement to brush his gun against Deacon's spine.

"You're not one of us," Newton muttered, and stuck his tongue out when Deacon gave him a disbelieving look.

Hancock could see the words on Deacon's tongue, the ones that said, _can you really say that?_ They were words that wanted to be spoken but too worried for outingNewton as a synth – possibly even outing Newton to himself. Deacon knew, of course he knew, he had probably signed the drop for Newton's arrival in the Memory Den.

The Railroad liked their secrets, but they were getting bigger, and every synth they saved, every operative they trusted, opened another chance for it all to come tumbling down. That's why Goodneighbor kept it small, kept it close, kept it to trusted fingers on hands and every scar a story.

It didn't matter that Newton was a synth, that Hancock was a ghoul, that the rest weren't; they had earned their scars, their stories, their _safety,_ together.

"You're on the other side of the wall," Hancock said quietly, shrug dismissive. "We look after our own."

"And you think I didn't look after Pen?"

"You didn't," Fahrenheit interrupted flatly before Hancock could say anything – or do anything, anything that might involve Deacon's head on a pike atop the walls of Goodneighbor, even if it would look good there.

Deacon didn't try to defend himself, which Hancock had to give some kudos for. There was no room to negotiate whilst Pen wasn't with them, whilst Pen was in _danger._

"They saw her with me," Deacon said, trying to catch Fahrenheit's eye with a look that said, _they'll think Pen's a synth_.

Fahrenheit scowled over her shoulder, deliberately bumping it against Hancock's in a rare gesture of affection. "How come you got away then?"

"Because they were trying to kill me," Deacon answered, a flat, emotionless tinge to his words as he added, "They wanted her alive."

Hancock absent-mindedly noted the way his eyelid twitched, the way his fingers curved painfully around his newly borrowed shotgun, and tried very hard not to picture killing the Railroad operative.

Well, he allowed himself a picture, or five, but he tried really hard not to act upon them.

Fahrenheit slid him a glance, angling her shoulders to keep Deacon and his annoyingly perceptive skills at bay. The angry angle of her brow spoke as clear as day, _calm the fuck down._

Hancock grimaced at her, _I am fuckin' calm._

The brow shifted, going high and disbelieving. _If that Railroad twat realises how many of us know about the Memory Den, we can kiss that alliance goodbye._

Of all the things that were running through his head, that was one thing he wasn't worried about. _He won't find out, not from one of ours._

Fahrenheit frowned at him as if he was an idiot, chewing on the inside of her cheek as if tasting something bitter. _No, obviously not from us, but you know we're gonna have to kill—_

"She could escape," Deacon announced, presumably pissed off for being left out of their silent conversation.

"You don't know Pen," Kelvin replied dismissively, as if Deacon was proving himself useless with every word, with everything he didn't know about Pen. "She won't leave."

"Why?"

Hancock turned to watch Kelvin's small shift of his shoulders, the ease, the _belief_ in his body. "Because people need her."

Deacon blinked, his gaze falling to the ground for a moment before commenting off-handedly, "We're getting close."

"I'm gonna scout ahead," Kelvin called, stubbing out his cigarette only to light another at Hancock's nod.

"Take two," Fahrenheit said, pointing at two of the Watch behind them. "Don't go far."

It didn't feel quite right watching Kelvin's brown leather jacket disappear, something uncomfortable settling in Hancock's stomach, as if he was slowly losing all the people he cared about.

Hancock shifted his weight, slipped his shotgun further under his arm, and had to pause when his fingers came into contact with faded brown fabric tied under his belt. "Where'd you find the hat?"

Deacon looked up in surprise at being addressed, but he answered when Newton gave him another poke in the back. "I didn't, she saw it on a trader as we passed Cambridge."

"It was near there she lost it," Hancock murmured, viscerally remembering the thick thread of fear that had snaked around his spine when she had gotten shot. He had been able to take care of her then, and she of him, they'd had each other's back, earned their scars and safety together.

Now she was on her own.

"She told me to hold her hat, I haven't let it go since," Deacon announced, a shred of emotion crossing his face, too complicated for Hancock to decipher, but his voice had gone slightly colder. "Until now."

"Trust us when we say we have more claim over it than you do," Fahrenheit replied, and Hancock vowed to buy her a hundred drinks just for that calm claim, for that loyalty to Pen.

Deacon wrinkled his nose. "It doesn't matter that you've known her longer, it matters that she asked me to hold it, and I will."

"Not if you don't have any fingers," Hancock threatened idly, just to see what he would do, but Deacon simply slipped back into his usual state, languor and ease in his shrug.

"I'd still have a head."

Fahrenheit ducked slightly, resolutely facing forwards so that Deacon couldn't see her expression, but the muscle in her cheek twitched the tiniest bit, and Hancock saw it.

He stared in affront at her, his disgust saying only one thing. _You find that idiot fuckin' funny!_

 _Of course not,_ Fahrenheit's rolled eyes replied when he made unintelligible noises. That cheek muscle twitched again, but then it stilled, and Fahrenheit frowned. "Kelvin not back yet?"

Hancock whirled, gaze roving over the group, over their surroundings, and felt his stomach drop a little further when he didn't see that battered leather jacket.

Instead, he saw Deacon stiffen, saw him focus on something beyond Hancock's shoulder.

"This is where we got jumped."

"Shit," growled from Fahrenheit's mouth as Hancock sprinted ahead, following the tracks of weary feet and heavy boots, aware of Fahrenheit at his flank watching for Kelvin's return. Until Hancock stopped.

There were bodies, far too many bodies, floods of blood but old and brown, as if it had happened days ago, as if something had happened and he _hadn't been there._

MacCready raced to the front of their group, worry lining his face as he tried to make sense of what was in the gore. "What happened, where's Pen?"

Fahrenheit went down to her haunches, fingers digging through the mess to dig out a silvery box, one attached to a bone that had broken in two places. Synths. "She must have escaped."

They found more fallen on the trail, more blood, more bones, more boxes.

Hancock wasn't looking for synth components, he was looking for dog tags, for sewn up jeans, for a Pip Boy attached to a slim wrist, but all he found were bodies. Some of them had guns, and those that did also carried a shot through the heart.

Hancock bared his teeth in a proud, predatory grin. "She was hunting them."

Pen was still bleeding, her leg still fucked and her head still sore, but it was those below who were panicking.

They had panicked on the first day, when they had taken her in, _thrown_ her into a line of other captives, tied her to a woman with stubbornness written in every bone – even the broken ones in her arm.

"What is this," Pen asked breathlessly, chest pained from a punch to her ribs when she had tried to resist, tried to reach for Deacon's outstretched hand.

"Kidnap," the woman muttered, but spat on the desert floor before Pen could respond. "If it's a ransom, they ain't gettin' a penny for me."

Pen was half-tempted to make a joke, joke about getting a _Penny_ and more than they bargained for. It didn't seem like the right time, and without Hancock around no one would laugh, so Pen just gave her a grim smile, earned a tighter one in return, and they both watched the guards with lowered lids.

They were dressed like drifters, they all were. No obvious marks, no banners, no helpful signs that told her their entire _modus operandi_. They were designed to be unremarkable, and Pen realised why all those traders had been so easily killed on the roads.

Nature told people to watch out for the warning stripes, for the rusted metal armour and the Gunner's green helmet, but a man in a battered blue jacket might have water, might have caps.

It was the perfect cover.

She must have bumped into a recent run, and with Deacon as her shadow she must have seemed the perfect addition to their synth captives. They didn't know her, not yet, not these ones, but someone would, their leader might.

She had to get out.

"What have you got," Pen whispered to the woman, shrugging a shoulder to show her rifle.

The woman's eyes lit with fire, with freedom, but shook her head when a guard walked too close to reply, dark hair falling about her face to hide the motion. "Only a knife."

Pen wished for one of her own right now, even though she didn't know how to use one, even though her recently healed fingers still twinged at the memory of metal biting into her skin. "Knives are good."

"My da always said the same," the woman replied, but she said it oddly, as if by rote, as if the words were new in her mouth but old in her memories.

Deacon was right, they were stealing synths from their new lives.

The wrongness of it was like a cold slime sticking to her skin, and she wanted to shake it off, wanted to peel it away with fingers that ached. There were enough captives to stage a coup; she didn't feel completely comfortable giving her pistol to someone but if it kept them free, she would.

Pen turned to nudge their neighbour, but felt a tug on the rope that bound her to the woman.

"Don't," she whispered forcefully, and when Pen looked taken aback, the woman aimed a glare down the way. "They won't come, they won't even talk. It's like they're robots, I think they're synths."

The phrase, _no shit, Sherlock,_ came to mind.

Pen opened her mouth and then shut it again, her head tilting to the side in confused surprise. "Yeah?"

The woman nodded, wariness in her posture. "I wasn't the first to get caught, but I weren't the last neither. The rest came in so easy-like, they don't fight back or nothin', they just… walk."

Pen rocked back on her heels, trying to think of a thousand things at once. The woman was right, the others were quiescent, most didn't even flinch when their captors walked by. Were they recently wiped, their memories not quite settled into place yet, and a part of them remembered a time of coerced compliance?

If they remembered the Railroad, if they remembered _Goodneighbor,_ it was dangerous for them all, and the odds weren't great as it was.

The memory wipe worked because it was a secret, because it _gave_ life rather than took it away like a recall code would. If someone found out what the Memory Den was doing, it would chase up the chain, all the way to the top.

The link had to be broken.

"Take me," the woman insisted, and grabbed at Pen's hand when she nodded. "If you can't, if I don't—"

"I will," Pen interrupted, trying to reach her pistol in its buttoned holster.

"Don't let _them_ take me."

It was a whisper, and Pen's fingers had only grazed her pistol's grip when she felt the rope go slack about her wrists.

"Wait—"

It was too soon, there was no plan, there was no _backup,_ and Pen's gaze focused on a woman that wasn't holding the knife properly. Her memories told her she knew, but her hands did not.

The woman shoved her shoulder, pushing her onwards, and Pen ran, ran until her lungs felt like they would burst and her heart felt like it would never stop, and then it did, because she threw herself behind a rock and waited for someone to follow.

Nobody did.

A scream echoed over the ridge, agonised and angry, and Pen slammed her eye to her sniper's sights so hard she nearly blinded herself.

The woman hadn't come, caught by another of the captured, their grip tight around her broken arm, stopping her from running. The knife her father had said to carry suddenly flashed through the air, silver followed by scarlet, and then she was free.

The blade slipped from awkward fingers, stuck between ribs that crashed to the ground, and she hesitated for a second too long.

 _Run,_ Pen whispered, her heart a hammering thing in her bruised chest.

It was too late, the guards advanced, guns ready, fists readier, and Pen's finger shook as it landed on the trigger.

The first shot was clear, the second wasn't, but she shot until the woman's screams gargled to a stop, she shot until the sands stained red, she shot until they had run from her onslaught.

They were fewer, but still enough, still enough to herd the rest of the captives as they fled across the desert, and the sniper followed.

 

* * *

 

They passed more bodies, as if they were checkpoints in the road, some sort of macabre trail of treats to the witches' hut, and Hancock's smile was a painful thing.

Pen was surviving, it was what she did.

She was doing it better than they were.

"Shit—"

Fahrenheit's voice was overshadowed by the readying of guns, and unfortunately it wasn't their own.

They were surrounded in seconds, their enemy using the ridges as high ground whilst they instinctively circled below. It felt a little like being shepherded by wild dogs, clever enough to cover the angles, stupid enough to not know what they were up against.

They were no sheep.

Fahrenheit's shoulder knocked his as she readied her minigun. "A trap?"

"Or luck," Hancock answered under his breath. "If they found Kelvin…"

Their opponents had no leader, no one that they looked to, they seemed to surround them as if ordered to but the orders had come from elsewhere. They looked like drifters, their gear worn and patchy, their guns makeshift things, pipe pistols and rusted rifles.

Whoever led them didn't care enough to equip them properly.

There was a flicker of concern on Deacon's face, but before Hancock could think it was for Kelvin's sake, he realised why he recognised a few of the angry faces behind the shitty guns.

They were synths.

The murmurs started like a low buzz, quickly gaining in intensity as they felt bolstered by the other, brave in the face of their supposed enemy. _Railroad_ came like a rumble, echoed so many times in hate and bitterness, and he definitely heard Desdemona's name amidst the whispers.

Hancock flinched when he heard his own.

"We can do this the hard way," Hancock called, forcing his voice to level out, "or you can put your weapons down an' fuck off."

Deacon threw him a look that, on Fahrenheit, might have said, _that's good of you._

It was weird. Hancock's brief frown replied, _don't do that._

The corner of Deacon's mouth seemed to twitch the tiniest amount, but it flattened into an unhappy line when nobody downed their weapons.

Hancock shrugged, and cocked his shotgun. "Hard way it is."

"My favourite," Fahrenheit growled, and the tail end of it was cut off by the roar of her minigun, Ashmaker mowing down anyone that took a step towards them.

Goodneighbor harboured fighters, and even those who came to them with nothing in their hands soon learned to hold a knife, to hold a gun. They looked after their own, wherever they came from, as long as they stood together.

Nobody looked after these synths, most of them fluffed on the grips, another with trigger control so poor he shot the one next to him, and it was clear before the first fell who would come out on top.

Some started to run, confusion and sweat on bruised brows, guns clasped to heaving chests. Deacon's voice crested above the furore, worried and wilful. "Stop, they're running."

"Yeah, to regroup," Fahrenheit called over the continued gunfire, their people refusing to take orders from an outsider.

"They're _scared_ ," Deacon insisted, his eyes slipping to Newton, who was happily slicking his hair back with a new shade of red.

"Good," Hancock replied flatly, his reload taking a second longer than it should when he pushed fresh cartridges into an unfamiliar shotgun.

"If they come back, fine, but—" Deacon broke off to look at the empty ridge, sand trails and dust all that remained of those that escaped.

It was guilt, Hancock knew, and he knew it was a damn heavy bitch, but so were the lives the slavers would take if they let anyone live. There was blood in the dirt, and if they went off to lick their wounds, they would be back.

"Anyone with a gun has already made it clear what side they're on," Hancock murmured matter-of-factly. "If they really do have the recall codes—"

Deacon's fists clenched as he spun on one foot to face him. "That doesn't make them all ticking time bombs!"

Fahrenheit raised a brow at the outburst, but when Deacon noticed the odd looks he was getting, he shut down again, the only sign of his anger, of his _fear,_ in the slight hunch to his shoulders, and Hancock didn't know what to say.

Pen would know.

Gunfire erupted over the ridge, ringing oddly as if it came from some distance. Hancock scrambled to the top, Fahrenheit hot on his heels and Deacon slightly ahead of him.

In the dying light, a small group fought off another wave, a wave interspersed with those who had run from the sound of Ashmaker.

"No, no, _no,_ " Deacon muttered, helpless to only watch as regroup and runners alike were taken down by a well-equipped team.

"Who the fuck is that?" Fahrenheit asked, hand shading her eyes against the setting sun, against the sand.

There were only a handful, good shots, not great, but for one with an assault rifle and another with a laser.

Hancock gave a pleased slash of a smile, something relieved in his sigh. "The Minutemen have arrived."

Preston's group was outnumbered, the smaller force dwarfed without Goodneighbor's numbers, until a sniper rifle screamed near Hancock's ear.

MacCready had his eye to his scope, grin a gritted thing. His shot was good, as were the next two, and it drew the attention of a ghoul in a flat cap, a ghoul who saluted at the sight of them.

The sight of a ghoul, his rust-haired shadow, and a sniper.

One sniper, when they should have had two.

Hancock turned as Fahrenheit did, her jaw set and eyes steely, and he remembered how much he loved her for knowing exactly what was going through his head.

"Go," she said to him, already giving hand-signals to the others, regroup, reload, ready up. "We'll keep the Minutemen out of trouble."

Newton threw over more cartridges for his shotgun, and Hancock scruffed his head in thanks as he looked at Fahrenheit. "Get Wedgwood, I owe him a drink."

"More'n that," MacCready interrupted, but distracted himself with taking another shot.

"Yeah, I know," Hancock murmured, attention already on their group, choosing who to put where, who to take, who to leave.

"Go," Fahrenheit said again, quieter, insistent.

"Get Pen," MacCready added, gaze meeting Hancock's for the split second it took him to reload.

"Bring her home," Fahrenheit finished, and Hancock felt the desire like a physical weight in his blood, like it whispered Pen's name ever so quietly, like it bubbled.

"I'm coming too," Deacon stated, and Hancock gave Fahrenheit a tight smile when she asked, _want me to club him?_

Hancock finished reloading his gun, and levelled a look at a still-weaponless Deacon. "Figured as much. Fall behind an' I'll leave you."

Deacon simply set off ahead of him, and Hancock sighed.

Maybe he should have let Fahrenheit hit him.

 

* * *

 

Pen was close, she was so fucking close, she had seen that bald fucker at the end of her scope and he had slipped away, like a fish off a lure – something from the deep dark with too many teeth, and a roar that shook the earth.

They swarmed about him like pilot fish, seeking food, seeking answers, and he gave them. They came in confused, cagey, and he softened his voice to something sibilant and told them they were synths, told them that it was okay, that they needed to come _home._

Told them life was found at the end of the leash, but he phrased it better than that.

Ajax, they called him, in reverent tones, and they thanked him for showing them the light, the way forwards, the fight for _survival._

Except that surviving was apparently attacking traders on the road and talking smack about the Railroad, as if they had betrayed them, abandoned them. Ajax told them so, told them they were synths and strong, that they had been led astray by humanity, that only by killing would they be free.

 _Rise above them,_ Ajax would say, and they would echo it with excitement. _Rise above the filth._

Pen might have taken it for a simple rebellion, a revolution, a _revolt,_ if it wasn't for one thing.

Ajax wasn't a synth.

Their freedom was a lie, their _lives_ were lies, and they followed the piper like rats to a river; but even the piper danced to someone else's tune, and Pen had no idea whose it was.

It had been quiet before the alarms rose, the latest batch already turned – or turned out, or off – and now they ran about with their guns, unfamiliar fingers on unfamiliar triggers, but they shot anyway, Pen had heard the noise, the furore.

Most of them had run, following orders like good little fish – or at least running from the shark who had started to sweat, the shark who circled the rooms too quick for her to follow, the shark who backhanded a fish who responded too slowly.

Ajax was worrying, he was checking his terminal too often, checking for messages that weren't coming, for a tune that stopped playing, and Pen wondered who – or what – could scare a shark.

Panic turned the air rank, turned it thick and uncomfortable, and every breath was like a wet weight in Pen's lungs, wet like the sodden mass of her leg. Still, it was only a leg, and her lip, and a slice through her scalp, and some very mild faintness from not eating or drinking for a few days.

She was _fine._

She couldn't say the same for everyone else; there was noise below, fresh shouts and scuffles amidst the new silence.

Pen hesitated at a very literal crossroads. Shoot the shark, or save some fish?

Fish.

She scrambled left, trying not to whimper when her bloodied scalp scraped the ceiling, again when her wrecked leg caught on a corner – but really, who made the corners in these things so sharp? It was almost as if they were designed to keep people out.

There were two gunshots, a strangled cry, and Pen felt the panic too. A slope disoriented her, but it brought her closer, a metal grill almost obscuring her view of a man with his back to her. He was dressed like Ajax, but this was a smaller shark, decked in worn combat armour, scratched, _used._

"How many are there?" The man growled, shoulders clenching as he backhanded someone kneeling across the jaw. "Talk, or you'll end up like your friends, _human_."

Pen had been trying to twist around, to get her feet back under her, but at that she glanced across the room, glanced and glanced again, fear skittering across her spine like a molerat across a moonlit desert.

Two bodies lay lifeless on the floor, blood spattered over every inch of them, every inch of a familiar leather jacket.

Kelvin's.

_No._

Pen heard the click of a gun and shoved her feet against the grill, the bang so loud she couldn't be sure the shot hadn't already happened. She had her pistol in her hand before the metal had hit the floor, careful to keep the shot high in case it went straight through to whoever had survived.

The body fell too slowly, and every second was agony.

Cuts littered a bloodied face, but bruised eyes lightened at the sight of her. "Shit, knew you'd still be here."

"Kelvin," whispered from her busted lip, her own smile just as wrecked as his, just as painfully _grateful._ "Is—"

"He's here, we're all here," Kelvin interrupted, failing to hide a wince as she slipped down from the vents only to land awkwardly on her duff leg, not recognising the two fallen. "You all right?"

"No," she murmured honestly, failing to hide her own emotions, the spiralling sense of joy at having _friends_ close by, the spiralling sense of despair at having them so close to danger.

Kelvin's wrists were ragged where they had been tied behind his back, but he told her where to find his knife, told her off when she put it back instead of taking it for herself.

"Need to get you one," he muttered, each bruised eye blinking separately as she checked him over for wounds.

"I have my rifle," she replied, just as quietly, as if the softer tone would keep him from hurting as she tore a strip from his shirt – it was as bloody as the rest of him, but it would keep him together for a little longer. Until the cavalry could arrive.

"I got jumped," Kelvin said self-deprecatingly, his laugh a hacking cough.

"Makes two of us." Pen met his eye for a tight smile, and hesitated when she saw a glaze creeping over them, the same glaze that threatened her own fuzzy head. "What's the latest odds?"

It was the only thing she could think of to keep his attention, to keep his brain moving, and it worked when he frowned at her. "On you?"

Pen snorted, timing it distract him from a knot around his gory wrist. "Yeah, I know you lot are worse than the bookies."

Kelvin gave an acknowledging tilt of his head. "Well, actually, we're wonderin' when you're gonna stand on the balcony with the boss for one of his speeches."

Pen paused in surprise, unsure how she felt about that image – or how tame that bet was. "That's... not what I was expecting."

Kelvin's grin dribbled blood down his lip. "S'only one of 'em, don't want Hancock offin' me if he finds out the rest."

Pen laughed quietly, using the pained rush of emotions as armour when they threatened to buckle her. Hancock was right, trust was hard – not just because it was so easily broken, but because it weighed so heavily, a warm, slightly suffocating weight, like an overly large dog.

Something else to protect.

"I've saved your life once today," Pen murmured indulgently, "I'll save you from Hancock, too."

Kelvin huffed a satisfied – if slightly pained – laugh. "Hm, maybe you're my new favourite."

Pen rolled her eyes, smile obvious when he repeated her words from before, when she had asked him to step down but he had only listened to Hancock. "You're just saying that because I make you money."

Kelvin made a half-hearted offended noise, but his eyes were clearer now, his breathing less strained, until he saw her staring at the vents again. "Come with me."

"I can't. Their leader, Ajax, he might run. I need to—" Pen bit the words off, bit them because they tasted of blood and brutality and she wasn't sure how to feel about it when they tasted good.

When they tasted _right._

"He's using 'em," Kelvin said sombrely, and she saw something familiar in his eyes, in the hand that gripped her forearm and his bloodied fingerprints so very red on her shirt. "Good hunting."

It was what Hancock said to her, what Fahrenheit said, and the trust, the belief _,_ the _family,_ made her feel strong, even though she wasn't, even though she was bruised and bleeding and bone-tired. All she needed was one clear sight, she didn't care if it wasn't fair, she didn't _feel_ fair, she felt feral, she felt free.

Just as she had when she'd been stuck under that burning car near Covenant, with Hancock calling her name and death on her horizon.

In a way, it had been.

"I need to stop this," Pen said, and it sounded stronger than she was. It was for the people who had lost their lives, whether they were lost to an innocuous-looking drifter on the road, or to the man who had put them there. Pen pushed her pistol into Kelvin's hands, her rifle still snug on her back, and pressed a kiss to his forehead. "Stay alive, Kel."

"You too," he murmured, his tired eyes looking like death – or as if he had seen death, seen it in a red duster that had hunted her across a damn desert.

 _Just a little further, rascal,_ her smile said, blood on her teeth from the split in her lip and darkness in her eyes from a free-flowing wound, but she crawled back into the vents regardless.

She had a date with death on the cards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a little treat in these uncertain times, [here's some Nick that I drew.](http://comehitherashes.tumblr.com/post/152573601643/as-its-halloween-and-my-hancock-file-went-boom) As always, your comments and kudoses are much adored, and I will get back to you as soon as I can. Ya'll make my days better.


	17. Glaucous

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my defence, I said it was gonna be a long one (pun not intended, that's for next chapter, ofofofo). I've finally been given a clean bill of health so hopefully I'll be around a bit more. As always, your comments and kudoses make my days brighter, thank you all <3

> I got bloodshot eyes, and there's blood in my teeth  
>  I got a ripped up jacket and a friend who's a thief  
>  Well I'm a-frothin' at the mouth, tryna pull it out  
>  But the fire inside keeps burning, burning out
> 
> \- Jamie T, _'Zombie'_

Hancock felt as if the empty rooms were a slap in the face, every echoing corridor seeming to whisper – not of death, but of the absence of life. The lives had all been sent off, sent to fight. The death was above ground, the blood in the sand and the far off rattle of gunfire, but they had gone down, where there was only quiet.

It was a quiet that made Deacon twitchy, as if he felt personally accountable for every scrap of silence, for every missed breath and stopped heart, even though he had yet to pull a trigger.

Instead, the Railroad operative had followed a fuse, a long, winding fuse that curled around the Commonwealth like a snake, gobbling synths up along the way, and Hancock was starting to wonder who had set off the detonator.

There were Institute markings down here.

Hancock had seen them before, tattooed on the older generation of synths like brands on a brahmin. It was a silhouette of a man, twice laid-over as if pictured two times, once with legs together and once with legs apart. It blinked in the corner of the terminals, printed above checklists, duties, names.

Those made Deacon twitchy too.

It wasn't a complete quiet, there were rumblings in the walls, heavy earth settling around generators, that staticky buzz found in underground vaults as if the metal couldn't contain itself, as if it was waiting to collapse, to explode.

This was exactly why Hancock hated venturing underground, why Goodneighbor remained happily above sea level.

He wasn't built for small spaces, he didn't even like it in his drugs. The open road, an open window, that's what made him feel alive, no more tall green walls or shanty towns in the cramped lower sections of the stands. Open skies, an open _mind._ Mentats made his head feel big, Psycho just made him feel small.

The walls shivered, the lights flickered, like a giant animal taking a deep breath, and then the generators stopped. The lights went out, the terminals went off, and true silence fell.

Hancock was twitchy.

"Not scared of the dark, are you?"

Hancock forced a scoff, wishing he had his old shotgun when the new one didn't quite sit on his shoulder properly, but the old one was lost somewhere near Covenant, stolen by one of the raiders who had stolen Pen. "Hardly, the dark's scared of me."

Deacon rolled his eyes, his sarcastic drawl back in full force now they had stopped running.

It was too dark to run, no windows and only the emergency lights on a slow flicker – they were too bright, neon white bright, like the ones Doctor Amari used in the Memory Den, painful and garish.

"It's weirdly clean in here, right? It's not just me," Deacon asked, trying not to sound as if he was panting – which he definitely was.

Hancock straightened up from his keeled-over-fucking-hell-my-lungs-are-too-small crouch and frowned. "Is it?"

Deacon gestured around the hastily abandoned room, at white walls barely seen through the gloom, at square metal tables and some carefully trimmed potted plants. It was a weird affair all around, the smell of bleach rife and the doors squeaky clean; even Deacon had to shrug at the sterile space. "It looks like a lab."

"What is it about synths an' labs," Hancock muttered, his chest tightening in all the wrong ways at the thought of Covenant.

Deacon turned to him in the darkness, his face closed and his voice quiet. "It's where they're born."

"Yeah, well, it's not where they're made," Hancock replied, frowning at Deacon's melancholy tone, and remembered Pen's blue eyes in the harsh light of the compound. "It's life that marks us, life that _makes_ us."

Deacon gave him an odd look, but before Hancock could shrug it off, a muffled gunshot echoed up the stairs. Deacon stepped aside to let Hancock barrel ahead, his shotgun heavy and only vaguely familiar in his arms as they descended into the depths.

He had gone into the belly of the beast before, when he was with Pen, but that had only been Pickman.

Only one psychopath, instead of a couple hundred.

The Institute were like a hivemind, a swarm of insects, the cannibalistic kind that got into every nook and cranny, and Hancock didn't want to be the centre of their attention.

If they got out of this alive, he was taking a damn long holiday – and so was Pen. No trade agreements, no interfering Minutemen or fucking annoying Railroad, just a few solid days of sleep and spirits. High ones.

Hancock's sigh was lost in each heavy breath until they finally reached a closed door, a flickering bulb overhead the only source of light in the otherwise silent hallway.

In the strobe effect, Hancock caught Deacon's eye.

_3, 2, 1._

Hancock's shoulder slammed against the door, his speed overpowering him when he realised it wasn't locked, and he would have gone flying if not for the hand that Deacon clamped around his shoulder.

They froze, mid-fall, and came face-to-face with a gun that Hancock knew well.

The wrong person was holding it.

"Boss," Kelvin sighed, all strength leaving him now he knew they had caught up, now that Hancock had his hands on Pen's pistol as if doing so would mean he could get his hands on _her_. There were three bodies in the corner, two he knew well and covered by Kelvin's jacket.

The third was a stranger, and none of them were Pen.

"You saw her?" Hancock asked, stress in every word, in every breath, trying to focus on the _now,_ now because he could grieve the fallen later, later when he could gather up his people and take them home.

"Yeah, yeah, she went—" Kelvin went to point at something, but Hancock had to interrupt.

"Is she okay?"

Kelvin looked him right in the eye, and lied. "Yeah."

"He's lying," Deacon pointed out as he knelt by the unfamiliar body, but they both ignored him.

Kelvin's mouth twisted uncomfortably. "S'not a total lie, she's shot to fuck but she's okay."

Deacon raised a brow, interrupting again. "How is shot to fuck, okay?"

"Because it's Pen," Hancock answered, voice tamed to a tense quietness, because anything was better than letting the rage out, than letting the _fear_ out. "She's surviving."

"Yeah," Kelvin murmured, brow furrowed as he looked at him closely – or tried to, what with the blood slicking his bristled chin and the likely concussion he was sporting. "Are _you_ okay?"

"Yeah," Hancock answered, and levelled a painfully neutral look at Deacon before he could say anything like: _the ghoul who's been pacing the floors and glaring at everyone? No, man, he's super okay_.

To Deacon's credit, he moved on.

"What happened to you?"

After waiting for a nod from Hancock – much to Deacon's frustration and pleasing Hancock to no end – Kelvin spoke without looking at the dark, bloodied corner of the room. "Pen said his name was Ajax, their boss. It was fine when they thought we were like the rest, but they saw Brett's gun and Yinn has that fuckin' awful tattoo, gave 'im my jacket but…."

Hancock gave a pained huff, guilt a familiar pool at the base of his stomach. Synths weren't born with tattoos, and even if they eventually got one, their ink didn't look ten years old like Yinn's did— like Yinn's _had._

"You weren't useful to them," Deacon murmured distractedly, missing the glare Kelvin gave him. "Where did you—"

A door on the far wall slid open and stuck halfway, just wide enough for a woman to slip through the gap. She was looking behind her but spun around when Deacon cleared his throat, and she skidded to a stop when she saw them, saw Hancock holding his shotgun and Kelvin aiming Pen's pistol.

She had an Institute marking freshly inked on her cheekbone, like some fucked up gang tattooag, and Hancock wondered if she thought it empowering.

"Shit, look, just take them," she babbled, dropping a bag of something onto the floor. Holotapes spilled out in a plastic wave, and Hancock had his hand around her throat in an instant.

The sound of distorted screams over a tinny speaker in Covenant's compound had him growling. "What the fuck is this place?"

The woman might have resisted, she might have hemmed and hawed and tried to get her way out of it, but something in her face changed when she realised who held her, when she realised who was at Hancock's back.

She wasn't looking at Kelvin.

"It's where they're created," she croaked obliviously, voice tight from Hancock's fingers around her windpipe. "It's where we recreate them."

The white walls, the appearance of sterility in an unsterile world; Deacon was right, they were making a lab. They were making a replica of the Institute.

"Recreate," Deacon echoed, voice so tight it was as if it snapped. "What do you mean, _recreate?_ "

"It's easy," the woman sneered, as if she had heard the words before. "They're only synths," she added, but her scoff switched to shock when a bullet landed between her eyes, a bullet that whistled straight past Hancock's head.

Hancock turned to give Kelvin an impressed look, only to see Kelvin pointing Pen's pistol at Deacon, who in turn was holding a pipe rifle.

There was a moment where Hancock could see straight past Deacon's façade, straight through the calm exterior and the snarky attitude, through the languor and ease as if nothing could phase him, and beneath it all was a man pushed to the edge.

Of all things, something wary in Hancock's chest settled at the sight, because it finally proved that Deacon _did_ care, and perhaps hated how much he did.

The mask was back in an instant, Deacon's body loosening to spread his palms wide and dangle the gun from a finger as if he were entirely harmless. "What?"

Hancock let the body go without any fanfare, keeping his attention on Deacon. "Where'd you get the gun?"

Deacon pointed over his shoulder at the unfamiliar body, but seemed surprised when Hancock let out a relieved breath.

"Good, thought Fahrenheit was losin' her touch."

Kelvin snorted tiredly and pulled Pen's pistol away, reading Hancock's dismissal in his tone. Deacon tilted his head as if he was trying to work something out, trying to work _him_ out, so Hancock raised a brow. "You takin' point now then?"

Deacon gave a brief shake of his head, still somewhat bemused. "After you."

Hancock didn't need to make eye contact with Kelvin to know he would have the rear, just as he didn't need to see Fahrenheit to know she was keeping everything together aboveground, just as he didn't need to hold Pen to know that she was okay.

He damn well wanted to though.

It was a tight twist through the half-open door, a corner left open for anyone with an eye to easily shoot at them, so Hancock held up a hand, edging his way through first with every sense on high alert.

The door nearly shut on his foot, another toe almost lost to oblivion as the hallway drowned in darkness, and all Hancock could hear were the soft reverberations of Deacon's hands slamming against the metal and Kelvin's hoarse swearing.

Hancock fumbled for a switch, for a control panel, for a fucking _handle_ on a high-tech sliding door, but all that met his fingers was cold, scratched wall, and the overwhelming sensation of being lured into a trap.

He took a step, another, two more, fumbling his way through the pitch black, faint metallic sounds in the distance as if a pair of feet pounded the floor, or turrets clicked into position.

He started to sweat, felt it drip down his back, like a laser sight lined up with his spine, like guilt in his stomach and fear in his heart and _oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck._

"The dark's scared of me," he whispered again, just to hear something, and gave a nervous laugh. "Yeah, fuckin' right."

The metallic sounds got closer, his heartbeat louder, and then two gunshots broke the silence, one powerful, one precise.

The second was followed by a scream, and a clatter of something dropped a long way.

The scream rebounded off the walls, chased itself down the hallway, and hurtled straight down Hancock's throat.

It was Pen's scream.

Hancock ran, running again, fucking stairs and fucking darkness and fucking _slavers,_ slavers and synths and suicide because he didn't know where he was going, he didn't know where he was fucking going except for the very faint sound of a sob that seemed to echo from all directions.

He skidded to a stop in a room that glowed green, multiple monitors showing that fucked up many-limbed man, and a cigarette still lit, _still lit, still lit._

There was only one other door, a set of stairs – more fucking stairs – that went up, _upwards,_ out of the ground, out of the dark, and Hancock chased them, every breath like a knife scoring his lungs and every step like a hammer on his knees, and every thought was terror.

Terrified of what he would find at the top, whether Pen would be okay, whether she was fucked up but okay, okay and surviving and _safe._

Emergency lights guided his way, plain and piercing, until he could see— he could see—

He could see the sky.

Hancock slowed to a stop when his boots touched dirt, when he could smell the outside and taste the breeze. It was the sky, it was above ground, it was open space everywhere, it was the _sky,_ gloomy and grey and useless.

Hancock turned on the spot, his shotgun shaking and his breaths keening, and he saw nothing. They could be anywhere, they could have taken her anywhere. There were bushes and cars and trailers and a fucking _factory,_ it was a damn vault built under a maze, and Pen could be anywhere. She could be gone. She could be dead.

"No, _fuck_ no," whispered from his mouth, more denials and more desperation and all that whispered back were the dead trees and an empty horizon.

Something in Hancock's chest _roared._

It roared again at the sound of a revolver cocking and a low, unfamiliar voice. "Drop the shotgun."

_Fuck you._

There was a creature sharing his skin, and it felt too tight, too full of rage, and it seemed to shudder, seemed to demand he give in – not to give up, but to give over, give over to the anger, to the bubbling in his blood that wanted to _burn_ everything it touched.

It was a familiar feeling; he had felt it in his dreams, in his nightmares, in his worse moments. He could take a bullet, he could use his hands, his teeth, _he could still kill._

He just had to let it loose.

"You're not the one in the vents, where on earth did you come from?" It had to be Ajax, he was too sure of himself not to be, his frown growing as Hancock turned around. "You're— My, oh my, it's the man himself."

Hancock had flinched at the word _vents,_ his rage falling back a little to be replaced by a voice that said he might have run right past her, past Pen, left her in pain and belowground and now he was stuck up here, stuck with a maniac between them.

Hancock forced himself to speak, forced a voice past the gritting of his teeth. "Look, I just want—"

"I don't particularly care what you want," Ajax replied scathingly, finger trembling on the trigger. "I know who you are and, unfortunately, I think I know who's been hunting my synths. I take it that you didn't let the girl escape, with the tapes?" At Hancock's unchanging expression, Ajax sighed. "Shame, she believed so easily, even thought she was human."

Hancock turned fully around, his shotgun hanging from limp fingers as he stared at a man he didn't recognise, a man who called them _his synths_. Ajax was clean, too clean, from the neat cuffs tucked into his leather gloves, to the perfect creases in his trousers, and Hancock wondered if he had once worn a lab coat.

He wasn't even wearing combat armour for fuck's sake, but he sported a wound because of it. A bloody hole above his hip, something fresh, something that looked like a sniper's rifle fired too close.

Pen had made him bleed.

"You look surprised, Mayor Hancock," the man taunted, his face carefully clean-shaven, scalp and all. "You were integral to all this, you and the Railroad, your memory wipes and gunpowder – all for free too, we didn't even need the recall codes."

Hancock paused, a cloying in his throat as he looked back at everything they had done, at the _good_ they had done, but the road to hell was paved with good intentions. All this time he thought they had been working with the Railroad, but in a way, they had been doing the Institute's job for them.

Recreate, reclaim, _repurpose._

That same guilt he had seen plaguing Deacon's shoulders now settled on his own, a guilt that said, _you contributed to this, this was your fault, every death, every life, every drop of blood that soaked the sand._

"Ruined now, of course," Ajax said, his sigh only mildly inconvenienced. "We'll need to speed a few things up."

Hancock chewed on his tongue, aiming for silver and turning up blood. "If you kill me, Goodneighbor dies too."

"You think quite highly of yourself, don't you? You worked it all out for me, Hancock; you gave me the Memory Den, you gave me the synths, and now you're going to give me Goodneighbor." At Hancock's frown, Ajax offered him a sick smile. "Your pet synth Newton will look good in your hat."

Fear slammed Hancock behind the eyes, fear and fury in equal measure.

They hadn't thought twice about bringing Newton, and why should they? He was one of them, one of theirs, he was one of the people.

For once, Hancock wished Deacon were nearby, just so he could send him a look, a look that should be inscrutable but somehow that nosy fucker always understood. Hancock wanted him to understand, wanted him to see, to hear, to promise.

_Find Newton, keep him safe._

But Deacon wasn't there, Pen wasn't there, Fahrenheit wasn't there, all Hancock had was grey skies at his back, and a deep well of trust for the people he could count on his hand. They would take up the fight, they wouldn't back down, and so his growl was a proud, possessive thing. "They're _my_ people."

"Not for long," Ajax murmured, his laugh sadistic. It cut off with a wince and a clasp of his hip, but it was the wince of a man who hadn't experienced much pain before, his frown almost disbelieving as he dipped his gloved fingers in his blood only to recoil in disgust.

"You look surprised," Hancock echoed, and earned a withering glare for his efforts. "Not done your own dirty work before?"

"I am a scientist," Ajax bit back, palm awkwardly pressed to his hip – he had clearly never tied his own wounds whilst being chased by a yao guai and three super mutants.

Or Fahrenheit.

"Right, your dirty work's done in labs," Hancock murmured, and tried to tamp down the desire to fight when Ajax didn't deny it, didn't deny the Institute. Pen wouldn't fight, not yet, she'd talk first, she'd use that silver tongue, she'd be _fair._ "Why take the synths?"

Ajax frowned at him, half in bemusement, half as if Hancock was the shit beneath his polished heel, as if the dirt offended him, as if he had lived his life in sterility before all this.

"Do you know how many synths we lose to your little operation?" Ajax asked, brow high as he waited for Hancock to shrug. "A fraction. A mere fraction in the grander scheme of things, but they're _ours,_ and we don't want them running around like loose sheep. They're designed to be penned in, it's where they thrive. Without walls they get lost, confused."

"Without walls, they _live_ ," Hancock growled, hearing himself in the synths' plight for freedom, but Ajax simply scoffed.

Snub about how many they saved aside, Hancock knew Ajax was right; they pumped out as many synths as they needed to clean the floors, to clean the Commonwealth – the spick and span labs below were clear signs of that, and the scoured trade routes were just another type of bleach.

Coursers had come to Goodneighbor once before, the Institute's heavyweights instead of the scouts that constantly harassed their walls. Newton had been kept out of reach, just in case, safe with MacCready in a sniper's nest, but they never had found out who they had been after.

They had disappeared without a trace, and sometimes people did too.

"You often do get 'em back."

"Yes, but it's a waste of coursers, a waste of _resources,_ and even when they do come back, they're different, _dirty._ We were all thinking it, but I said it, and the board agreed," Ajax murmured, his face twisting into disdain. "They sent me up here to get them, to repurpose them, they sent me to this vile place because it was _my_ idea."

There was a fuck off well of resentment there, but Hancock wasn't sure whether it was aimed at the synths or the world, because Ajax squeezed at his wounded hip and hissed, "You people are filthy, rolling around in the radiation and the dirt. It was so easy to interfere, to nudge at your trade routes, at your so-called settlements. Lose your drink and your drugs, and what are you? You're animals, you're just _fuel_."

Hancock wanted wavering, he wanted posturing, but this guy looked at him as if he was the reason he was stuck up here – in a way, because of the Memory Den, he was – and Hancock realised he may have finally huffed his last inhaler of Jet.

It had been this morning, the metal warm, the huff sweet, like Pen.

There was a faint noise echoing up the stairs, the sound of slow, dragging steps, and Ajax flinched as if he remembered the wound now trickling blood into the pristine cream of his trousers. "You may as well come out," he called over his shoulder. "You must be unarmed or you would have shot me again by now."

Hancock thought he might have made a noise when he saw blonde hair creep up the stairs, but she wasn't creeping, she was crawling.

Pen didn't look right, she was unarmed, unsteady, unseeing. She looked at him, she didn't look away, but there was too much blue and not enough pupil, too much blood and not enough pale skin where a bullet from a revolver had seared a chunk of her right bicep and she was favouring her left leg again.

She had finally stopped limping, and now it was back.

"Come here, relic, or I'll shoot him right now," Ajax practically crooned, barely heard over the harsh tearing of Hancock's breaths, over the burning _need_ in his head to get to Pen, the need in his blood to burn everything else in sight.

Ajax positioned himself in between them, angled just so to let Hancock see how he held Pen's cheek, the revolver in his hand pushing her hair back so he could cup her jaw with his bloodied glove.

"You were so pure, before you sullied yourself – or perhaps _debased_ is more appropriate." Ajax had touched the scar marring her cheek, but he turned to sneer at Hancock for the last, as if he was a demon that had tempted an angel into falling.

A frown flickered across Pen's brow, glazed eyes narrowing at the slight, but Hancock's narrowed for a different reason entirely.

"How the fuck d'you know about Pen?"

Ajax hummed in interest, his attention utterly distracted by the dog tags about her wrist, by the name stamped upon them. "Pen?"

Pen shuddered when Ajax touched her, revulsion flowing across her face, but then she would tear in a wet breath, her right arm practically glowing with fresh blood, and then her eyes would meet his and she looked as if she would cry, as if she would scream.

Hancock couldn't keep calm, he couldn't be _fair,_ not when every muscle was screaming at him to run, to rend, to _wreck_.

Ajax held Pen's jaw, distaste on his face when he touched her scars, her _marks_ , and murmured, "Perhaps it would be best if you died, I don't want to bring back _dirt_."

Ajax had secured himself a painful, public death, swinging from the State House balcony with Deacon helping him hammer in the nails. Hancock was furious, he was frothing, there was a buzzing noise in his ears and a snarl coming from his throat and he wanted to tear Ajax apart limb by limb.

His blood wouldn't stop bubbling, it _hungered._

"What worries you more, I wonder? Your life," Ajax questioned softly, the short stub of a revolver barrel brushing against Pen's scalp, and then it moved away. "Or his?"

Hancock didn't look at the slim little circle of death, he looked at the slim length of it instead, and they both went with a bang.

Something tied tight around his heart, around his humanity, and it snapped.

Blue eyes with no pupils to speak of, blinked, and then it all went red. It was everywhere, a haze, a hue, a hum, and Hancock thought this was it, this was the moment where feral wasn't an adjective anymore, it was a noun, it was a thing, it was…

It was Pen.

She yanked Ajax's hand back towards her, and for the scant second of muzzle flash, everything went white, the pair of them burned indelibly on the inside of Hancock's irradiated eyelids, like the images of when he had first seen her, of when he would last see her, poised in the arms of a man who sneered at her scars.

The white faded, the red did not.

Pen's teeth were red, blunt teeth that had clamped onto clean, clinical jugular. Pen's hair was red, knotty hair that had flicked with the jerk of her head. Pen was red, pre-war Pen who had never used a knife, who had only used guns to shoot paint, Pen had ripped a man's throat out.

Badly.

She hadn't got the pull right, grip slippery when her teeth had pierced the artery, and all she had managed was a flap of skin not quite attached anymore, and a heart that was pumping more air than blood.

Ajax was dead, he just wasn't dead _yet_.

He gargled something shocked, dropping his gun to claw at his throat, to try and stem the flow of blood, but it was too little, too late, and every inch of those clean clothes sucked up the red like a stained, dirty sponge.

Pen watched Ajax fall, seemingly unaware, unaware she was covered in blood, unaware she had killed a man with her teeth, unaware she had a burn across her left cheek, marring the long scar from her temple.

Ajax must have squeezed the trigger when Pen pulled the gun back, the barrel flashed too close.

_Too close, too close._

"Pen," Hancock murmured, his voice wet and rough, and he trembled with the need to go to her when she started to shake. Her hands came up to her face and fell away red, so fucking red, and when she looked at him, she was lost.

"What did I do?"

If he made a noise, it was a wondering thing, a desperate thing. "You survived, kitten."

Pen shook her head, slowly at first but gaining in confidence, flicking blood from the corners of her mouth with every sharp movement. "I made sure you did."

"I know," Hancock breathed, unable to look away from her, unable to stop feeling so fucking proud of her, proud and protective and damn well protected. "I know."

Pen still shivered slightly, and he was scared to touch, scared to root her in this one bloodied memory, but she looked at him then, gunmetal gleam and all, and her voice was sombre. "I don't think we can tell anyone about this."

Hancock's heart still ricocheted in his chest at the sight of her, looking like one of Pickman's paintings, her boots sticky and her skin slick. He knew he was looking at a survivor, he knew his people would see a warrior, but he also knew that someone else might see a monster.

He saw absolution.

"I know," Hancock murmured hoarsely, and each sorely won breath was reverent.

Most people wouldn't understand, they wouldn't know her feral edge of fairness, they wouldn't see a kitten downing a hyena, they'd see a human tearing the throat out of another.

It didn't matter that it was for him, for a ghoul, for the mayor of a town of reprobates, but it mattered that it was her.

The Minutemen's leader in name alone.

There was no daylight to bring levity to the scene, no breaking of dawn to soften it, only the gloaming, uncaring and dim, casting them both in ambiguous shadows as dusk fell like dead flesh upon a dirt floor.

Pen turned her face to the skies to look for the stars, but only the rolling clouds looked back, thick and heavy and cloying.

Her hands went to her cheeks, and although her fingertips pressed lightly into the lean muscle at first, her bloodied nails began to dig crescent moons and her breath shuddered damply, as if she was replaying the scene, replaying it without the threat of a gun to her temple, or to his.

Pen scraped painfully at her tongue.

Hancock abandoned his shotgun to go to her, to take her hands in his and kiss the bloodied fingertips, to stare into slowly growing pupils and whisper, "It's okay."

"Shit," she answered on half a breath, "but okay."

Pen was buried against his chest before he could smile, shaky as hell though it was, although not quite as shaky as either of them, his own muscles quivering in time with Pen's.

He eased her away as gently as he could, battling the need to hold her with the need to keep her safe, keep the feral edge of her his and his alone. There was water somewhere in his duster, and when he wet the ends of his belt, he gently cupped her jaw and brushed the frayed edges over her face.

She was still pale beneath the claret, but her eyes were dark, and Hancock froze in the snare of a beautiful predator. One florid and fair and so fucking feral that it called to something ferocious in his own nature.

Pen came to him, searching and sweet as her lips parted on a hushed breath, and his fingertips ghosted over the scars on her skin, the marks of her life, and he uttered two words against her mouth.

"Thank you."

Pen's eyes squeezed shut and he worried that she would cry when she opened them, but they were clear, and calming, and carried the faintest hint of wildness in their depths.

"Hell of a thing to thank me for," she murmured, and pushed her forehead against his when he laughed, her sigh apologetic even as she made no efforts to move away from him. "I'm filthy."

"You're stunning," Hancock replied honestly, and Pen went as red as the blood he wiped from her skin. "You're a survivor, kitten."

There was another of those moments between them, the calm amidst the hurricane, the brightness amidst the blood, and Hancock felt in his element again. It didn't feel like home, but it felt right, like open skies and an open mind, and Pen who wore her scars so well, whether out on the road or in his arms – or both, when he tired of paperwork and she tired of sand.

They were from two different worlds but they met in the middle of a storm, one of radiation and one of rain, with gunfire as their thunder and lightning in their laughter.

Pen turned her cleaned cheek into his palm, wincing when his thumb caught at the fresh burn. "I'd kill for a hot shower."

"I bet you would," he teased, deliberately wiping a chunk of something gory from her hair, and when she grimaced, he started to laugh. "Need to sort you out first though."

Pen snorted, tired brow rising as high as it could. "Why, thought you'd never ask."

Satisfied she was as unbloodied as he could make her, Hancock met her gaze with a disbelieving smile, chuckling when she looked away with a snicker.

It stopped with a hiss when he bound her arm up, the flag at his waist solid and soft enough to shield the bleeding chunk out of her bicep. Even the white stars and stripes turned red after a moment, but it would hold, and that was all that mattered.

"This feels wrong," Pen muttered, scowling when he laughed. "You don't have a Union Jack instead, do you?"

"Quit whinin'," he murmured as he tied the knot, shaking his head at her grin, a grin that had withstood so many horrors, both before and after the war. Ajax had called her pure, and Hancock had thought her perfectly preserved art.

She was still art, but the painting was different. Where it was once green grass and clean clothes and a hot drink he still didn't quite understand, now it was grey guns, battered hats, and a bloodied smile he couldn't help but kiss.

The frame was still singed, and a bit more scarred, but it was all still beautiful.

They stood in the falling dark of night, with blood on their tongues and death in their hands, and felt alive.

"I don't feel pre-war anymore," Pen murmured, but it wasn't a sad thing, it was quietly victorious, it was said with the fire of a hundred nukes in her eyes and a newly awakened hunger. "I've acclimatised."

"Acclima—?"

Pen kissed him again, but her fingers curled tight into his shoulders this time, as if she wasn't searching so much as _finding,_ and when her teeth caught at his tongue, he was happy to be found, found by a survivor, a killer, a kitten who had her claws in his heart and he hoped she never let go.

 

* * *

 

There were Minutemen hunting vainly for survivors when they made it above-ground again. Hancock's arm had been tight and protective around her waist when they went back through the rooms, and Pen was content to lean on him – and, for a few moments, be carried when her leg threatened to give way.

Hancock had gone into the vents to fetch her fallen rifle, and judging from the way he immediately ripped a strip from his shirt and tied it around her leg, she had left quite a bit of herself behind in those tunnels. So much so that he simply held her before they moved on, his heartbeat irregular against her cheek as she curled into his chest and _breathed._

He was still steady in a storm and the first to find one, but this hadn't just been a storm, this had been a mutiny, a shipwreck, the start of a war, and the captain stood in the broken debris of someone else's ship and he shook, just a little, at what might have been.

His crew cheered when he returned to the surface, Fahrenheit's half-smile across the distance telling him that everything was okay – that he was too – and Hancock breathed a sigh of relief into Pen's neck.

Pen pretended not to notice Fahrenheit breathing a similar one at the sight of them.

Fahrenheit was running interference whenever one of the Minutemen caught sight of something odd on a body, when a silver box caught the light, and all too soon, the Goodneighbor crew had slowly taken over and the Minutemen were left to tend to their own wounds.

Preston's people looked shell-shocked, and a glance around the sands told the story. It had been a massacre, Ajax's conditioning so tightly wound that the synths had plunged headfirst to their deaths, convinced that their lives depended on it.

They had already earned their lives, had already fought for their freedom, but slaves weren't given an open sky and the Institute ensured they would never see it. It was why the Railroad and Goodneighbor had to exist, had to thrive.

With as much help as they could get.

The Minutemen were staring warily at the Goodneighbor group across the way – who were quite happy to pretend that the Minutemen didn't even exist, except for Wedgwood, who was welcomed back with open arms.

Pen had to stop when she saw them, had to lean heavily into Hancock's chest when it felt as if she would laugh – or cry.

It wasn't quite an alliance, it certainly wasn't a friendship, but it was something. All it had taken was a plot to overthrow the Commonwealth and for her to get herself lost in the mix.

"I might get captured more often," she offered mildly, and snorted when Hancock gave her a very flat, unimpressed look.

"I'll get Fahrenheit to steal all your hot water, she likes a bath."

"We'll have to share," Pen murmured, and when he raised an amused brow, she added in a rush, "No— Not Fahrenheit— I meant you!"

"Thought you'd never ask, kitten," he answered, echoing her words from earlier, smirk lifting at one corner when she flushed happily.

Hancock let go of her suddenly, and when she lifted her head to frown at him, it was to stumble when someone thudded into her. A peaked hat digging into the side of her head as she was lifted a scant inch from the floor, brown hair and the smell of sweets the only clues she was given.

Pen couldn't have helped her smile even if someone had paid her.

"Missed me?"

There was a muffled torrent of almost-expletives and then she was pushed back at arms-length to look into worried blue eyes. "Never do that again, Pen."

Pen felt a wet heat at the back of her throat and dragged MacCready back into a hug, her brother's dog tags digging painfully into her wrist. "Sorry, sweetpea, didn't mean to."

MacCready muttered more things but they were calmer now, and his hug less rib-bruisingly tight. Pen opened her eyes to see Hancock smiling at the picture they made, and when her duff leg almost gave way, he wordlessly braced his hand at the small of her back so she wouldn't have to let go.

Pen could do wordless too, so she mouthed _I love you_ at him and grinned when he gave a flush of his own.

Showers and dirty talk might reduce her to a heated mess, but start spouting poetry to Hancock and her gallant ghoul fell apart.

Now there was a thought.

When she was steady again, when MacCready had finished telling her off for disappearing on him – _and don't think Nick isn't pis— angry too, 'cause he is –_ and Hancock had gone to scruff Newton's hair and check on a makeshift-stretchered Kelvin, MacCready glanced over her shoulder with a raised brow.

"Heads up," MacCready murmured, and then shoved her hat into her hands, although where he had got it from was anyone's guess. "Oh, you might need this."

To have her hat back felt bizarre, having it back when she was around people she _knew_ was even stranger, as if time had never passed. It felt as if she had just stepped out of the ice again when Preston walked up to her, his smile troubled.

"I'm glad you're okay."

"That's up for debate right now," she murmured, smile tired, and looked down at the battered hat in her hands before she looked at Preston again, at the concern in his eyes and the strength of his shoulders. "I can't do the General thing anymore, Preston."

She had expected him to reel, to reassure her, to deny it all, but his hand went to the back of his neck with a sigh. "I knew this was coming."

"You could have let me know," she grumbled good-naturedly. "I've been shitting myself at the thought of telling you."

"Sorry."

Pen raised a dubious brow at the man who had held it all together for so long, and it earned a small smile, so she knocked him affectionately on the shoulder and sighed, "We needed each other, for a while, but you've got this, you've always had it." Preston opened his mouth to argue, but she shoved her hat in his hands. "You're the General now, you always have been."

Preston hesitated, but it wasn't out of nervousness, there was confidence back in his spine, surety in his smile. "This isn't the end, there's always more to do, 'cause I did need you – and not just for kicking the settlers into gear."

"Yeah, well, pretty sure you're the only one thanking me for that," she laughed, giving herself a little reminder to steer clear of any settlements for a while, just until things calmed down.

"Thank you, Gener—" Preston's face contorted. "Pen."

"Any time," she murmured genuinely, pleased to finally drop the title, but then she held her hand out. "I actually want my hat back though."

Preston gave it back with a laugh, touching the brim of his own. "I already have one."

"We match, just don't get a bullet through it, that's seriously uncool whatever anyone says," she drawled, fingers lingering near the hole, near the scorch marks it had gained in her absence. It felt right back in her hands again, but it wouldn't mean what it did, too much had changed – but some of it for the better. "You know you can always call on me, and Goodneighbor."

Preston's smile turned wry as he looked at the two groups studiously ignoring each other. "There was a time I thought you were crazy for saying that."

"These are crazy times," Pen answered. "We need each other."

"Yeah," Preston replied quietly, gaze lingering on three people who watched them closely, one a mayor and his rust-haired shadow, and the other a strangely indistinguishable man with a smirk at his lips.

Pen narrowed her eyes at that one, mouth opening to shout something like, _where the fuck have you been_ , but he gave a little twitch when he realised she was watching him – or maybe it was because a minigun was making itself known to his spine.

The sight alarmed her enough into stopping, into realising that there was a fucking Railroad operative amidst Goodneighbor's inner circle – even if he was standing so casually it was as if he was often tied up with a pissed off Fahrenheit breathing down his neck.

Which, knowing Deacon, might become a normal day, right after the club lunch and Desdemona calling a productivity meeting.

Hancock was back at her side before she could even finish her frown, worry and warmth in every bone, and she loved him that little bit more.

"Your people that you trust at your back, the ones on your hand?" Pen reminded, her fingers splayed until Hancock nodded, and then she pointed a finger at Deacon. "He's on mine."

Hancock matched Fahrenheit's high-browed look, Hancock's saying, _not him, kitten, anyone but him._ Whereas Fahrenheit's said, _fine, but that doesn't mean I like him_.

Deacon somehow read all of this and put on an overly exaggerated friendly voice. "I'm so glad we're a family again."

Fahrenheit shoved him in the spine for good measure, and shrugged when Pen narrowed her eyes at her.

Some things never changed.

And yet, some things did. Around her, Minutemen were almost mingling with Goodneighbor, she had friends and loved ones again, and there would be a new dawn on the horizon.

It would burn bright, like life, like death in a red duster.

Pen leaned against Hancock's chest, her split lip stinging with a smile as his arms came about hers and he rested his head on her hat. "I wanna be angry at you," he said to Deacon, but when Pen sighed happily in his arms, he added, "but I kinda can't."

Deacon gave a smug smile, until he noticed Fahrenheit still staring daggers at him. "I guess you can still be angry at me though?"

Fahrenheit's happy nod promised pain. "Oh yeah."

Deacon weighed his head to the side and sighed, but Pen saw the glimmer of amusement in eyes that looked so very clever without their sunglasses, she saw MacCready laughing with Preston and Wedgwood, saw Kelvin bragging about his injuries to a wide-eyed Newton, saw _people_ , saw them surviving.

Hancock nudged his way to her cheek, the uninjured one, and pressed a kiss to her jaw. "Home?"

Pen turned tiredly in his arms, turned away from all the bodies and the fucked up stuff that had gone on underground. "Yeah, we'll deal with all the shit tomorrow."

"Sounds like a plan, kitten," Hancock murmured, his laugh rough and wonderful in her ear, and when he thumbed a drop of blood on her chin that didn't belong to her, he met her gaze with a secretive, _satisfied_ smile.

The world had burned, and so did she.

Not evolving, but acclimatising.

 

* * *

 

Goodneighbor was noisy again, it was celebrating, it was loud, it was making itself known in a world that didn't want it. A world that said synths weren't to be trusted and Goodneighbor even less so.

The braziers were lit, the drinks split and the cigarettes shared, and every person on the streets below had fought tooth and nail for their survival, for their _lives,_ whether they were human, ghoul, or synth.

It was hard to keep an eye on everyone, the Railroad had proved that, but he recognised a few familiar faces from time to time, saw a trader over a campfire that he had once seen in a plush chair under a glass dome.

They didn't remember him, not these ones, not the ones that loved their new lives.

The ones they had mowed down on the sands would never remember again.

Hancock pulled out a holotape from his jacket, the last remaining bit of technology before Goodneighbor's arsenal had taken care of the rest, snatched from Ajax's terminal on the way out. It was stamped in the corner, the many-limbed man staring back at him.

Hancock looked out of his window at the streets below, at Newton telling today's tale as if he had single-handedly saved the day, and Hancock thought of danger, he thought of the things he had said to Deacon, he thought of the people.

His people.

There was a crack inside his fist, the plastic cutting into his palm, and his blood mingled with the machinery inside.

The holotape was lost, and with it were the recall codes for every synth that had passed through the Memory Den's doors.

He wasn't foolish enough to think it was the only copy.

Pen's hand slid down his arm and uncurled his fingers, picking out the broken bits of metal and plastic, and squeezing his bloodied palm with hers.

"They're safe," she murmured, with such conviction that he wanted to believe it would always be true; conviction from a woman who had woken up believing that synths were monsters.

"They know," Hancock said roughly, head full of maps, maps with Goodneighbor circled in bright red paint and a man who looked at Pen as if he recognised her. "They know what we can do now."

Pen brought his hand up to her face, her split lip gentle against his reddened knuckles. "Goodneighbor made a stand, that's not a bad thing."

"Ain't it?"

Pen tilted her head to the side, her other hand coming up to smooth the frown from his forehead until he tried a smile. "You knew they'd find out eventually."

"Yeah, just didn't think it'd be 'cause we murdered a bunch of people," Hancock sighed, and it felt like it wouldn't stop, as if it didn't relieve anything, not when he remembered the anger on Deacon's face as he yelled, _that doesn't make them ticking time-bombs._

"History repeats itself," Pen said, that sense of _age_ appearing in her eyes again. "There will be more recall codes, there'll be more leaks, just as there'll be more psychopaths, more people who are one bad day away from a killing spree, human or not."

"True, I'm more scared of Fahrenheit than I am of Newton," Hancock admitted, his smile slightly easier when Pen laughed, but it faded at the thought of all those lost – both physically and figuratively. "The Memory Den's supposed to give them better lives."

"It does," Pen insisted, fingers squeezing his, blood and all. "If the Railroad only saves a fraction, then there was only a fraction of a fraction against us today. The rest are out there, living their lives, convinced that Goodneighbor is a terrifying place with a tyrant ghoul as their leader."

Hancock had to grin. "I'm not disputin' that, it's good for business."

Pen's smile softened to something sympathetic. "Yes, Goodneighbor made a stand, and to some it will always be a threat, but to others, to the people down there, it's hope."

Hancock took another breath, but this one loosened his shoulders, this one felt better, and he pulled Pen a little closer to him just so she would brace a hand on his chest. "D'you think we need a logo?"

Pen snorted, taking full advantage of the fact that his shirt was open at the top. "I can't believe the Institute took da Vinci's _Vitruvian Man_ ," she murmured, a mystified smile on her face, and he wondered what history was lost to time except for the knowledge that lived on in her head.

"What does it mean?"

"It's supposed to signify ideal human proportions," she explained, and at his blink of realisation, gave a small, bitter laugh. "Yeah."

"They don't think synths are the same as humans though."

Pen paused in surprise, gaze thoughtful. "They made them more human than they realised. They gave them free-will, gave them hope, and heroes."

That last word always made him preen a little, always made him remember the tail end of Covenant, after the blood and the bluster, Pen's hand soft on his jaw when she had called him her hero. "My ego's gotten so happy since you've been around."

Pen held her tongue between her teeth, smile wide as she tugged at his duster a little. "Just your ego?"

Hancock was normally the first person to raise a brow, to flirt, to watch the eager flush spread across Pen's cheeks, but he had to admit, standing here and sharing shit he'd normally bottle up and have to blurt at Fahrenheit over a beer…

Pen made him so damn happy.

"You make me so damn happy," he murmured, and watched delight chase surprise across those telling sky-blue eyes.

Pen leaned up to kiss him, grumpily throwing her hat aside when it got in the way of his tricorne, and he tried really hard not to let his heart do this weird, triple-thump thing when she whispered his name into their kiss.

It didn't work, his heart did the weird, triple-thump thing, and he didn't care.

The door opened with a bang, and Fahrenheit walked in without looking at them, paring her nails with a savage-looking knife. "They're waiting for your speech."

"I'm going downstairs," Pen announced immediately, and grinned in satisfaction when Fahrenheit angrily pointed the knife at her.

"Fuck you, damsel."

Hancock watched this happen in bemusement, and when Fahrenheit stormed off, Pen leaned against his chest and said simply, "Caps."

"You can't play favourites with 'em, kitten," Hancock laughed, but she only gave him a mischievous gleam, and he had to wonder what havoc she played on Goodneighbor's betting stakes. "You, uh, don't wanna stand with me?"

Pen paused, watching his face for regret, for disappointment, and finding only curiosity, she kissed him. "You're their hero, rascal, mine too. I want to see what it's like from down there." Hancock snorted, trying not to grin like an idiot, and failed when she murmured, "Maybe one day, if you're good."

"Says the woman with blood on her teeth," Hancock replied, his kiss catching Pen's surprised smile, her laugh when she realised he would commit that image to memory for all the wrong – and so very _right –_ reasons. Pen thought she had only just acclimatised, but she had liked his knives, had danced with death and called him rascal; she wasn't born for this world, but she was made for it. "I'm often bad."

"Good," Pen whispered, her fingers sliding down his duster lapels as if it was hard to let go. She made a very small but intensely distressed noise, and then kissed him on the cheek. "Good luck."

Pen ran before she deprived Hancock's adoring crowd of their hero – that or gave them an entirely different sort of show, and she was nervous enough about that as it was.

She filtered in amongst the people, waves and smiles as she passed, another hug from Daisy and a two-fingered wave from Wedgwood, until she made it to the back, her newly bandaged arm still tender – and if it got infected, she was blaming the stars and stripes.

Deacon seemed to appear out of nowhere, coalescing from the shadows to lean against the brick, and she could only glance at him in surprise when he was still sporting the slicked, raven locks of before. "You look… well, not different, that's the issue. You look the same."

Deacon gave a resigned shrug, new clothes sourced from somewhere – and she was very much doubting it was the Goodneighbor storage. Not with permission, anyway. "Yeah, well, this disguise is ruined."

Pen made a sympathetic noise, but even she couldn't bring herself to tease Deacon right now, not after the deaths of all those synths. It wasn't as if she knew him that well, but he had changed from the man she had known a few days ago, and she wasn't sure what to do about it.

When she hitched her shoulder very slightly against his, he gave her a surprised look, but Pen focused on the balcony and pretended it was an accident.

The corner of his mouth twisted very slightly upwards.

The door above them opened, and the gathered crowd quietened so suddenly it felt surreal, as if the ghoul who cleared his throat were something akin to a prime minister before his podium, or a pope on his balcony.

Hancock put them all to shame.

"Well, it's been a weird fuckin' day," Hancock started, and Pen tilted her head back with a smile. There was an odd sense of pride in listening to Hancock speak, in hearing him talk about their strengths, about their loyalty.

He was vocal about their hatred of the Institute, of the raiders, of anyone who hurt one of theirs, but he was careful to talk nicely about everyone else.

Well, he urged people to think before they shot, and that was something.

"He's not bad," Deacon murmured, having not looked away from the balcony once, and Pen didn't bother hiding her smirk.

"Coming over to the dark side?"

Deacon gave her an unimpressed look, but it faded when she simply smiled, surprise a brief glimmer in his clever eyes. "You left the Minutemen."

Pen gave a pleased laugh. "I dropped the title, yes. Did something slip past your razor-sharp perception?"

"You're staying here," he said instead, not quite a statement and not quite a question. At her nod, he paused, and she could see him wondering just how much she knew, about the world, about the Commonwealth. Deacon prided himself in having thumbs in so many pies, and whilst Pen might only have her pinkie in a few, they were an important few.

There was a moment where he considered killing her, just a flash of a thing, but she didn't take it to heart.

Information was power, and here, at the beginning of the new world, it was building anew.

Deacon sighed, his shrug forcibly easy. "Well, it'll make the drops a bit easier, and at least there's someone I don't hate here now."

"Thanks," Pen laughed, knowing his answer for acceptance, for affection, because these days trust was earned in the heat of battle on the edge of a knife – or a thumb in a pie. "Doesn't mean I'm giving you any state secrets."

"To think I _advocated_ for you to Des," Deacon said, shaking his head in pretend disappointment, and he almost smiled when Pen raised a brow.

"You know I'm the only reason you're not dead, right?"

Deacon scoffed, as if he had engineered every step of the way. "I think Fahrenheit likes me."

Pen eyed him askance, and had to burst out laughing. "You are _so_ barking up the wrong tree."

"Whatever," he replied airily, and waited for the balcony door to shut before adding, "Tom has a scope for you when you feel like doing some real work, Ninetails."

"I'm still not sure of that one," Pen started, turning around to give him a hug, but he had already gone, and MacCready slipped into place beside her.

"He finally managed to sneak away?"

Pen turned on the spot, going on tiptoe to no avail. "Yeah, it was like he disappeared."

MacCready nodded, hands in his pockets as he leaned against the bricks. "I read a comic about a guy like that."

Pen made an interested noise and hooked her arm around MacCready's, resting her head on his shoulder and listening to the people talk, listening to their pride, their power, their _passion._ They might live in a town that made them outlaws elsewhere in the world, but here they were strong, they were sure.

They had come back from war today, and the atmosphere was like a revolution, people who called for liberty, for equality, people with a cause, with a hero.

Hancock appeared in front of her, grinning widely when MacCready rolled his eyes at Pen letting go of him only to attach herself to Hancock's chest. "I dunno how Fahrenheit isn't constantly being sick around you two."

"Where's Kelvin," Pen announced, "I'd like to bet on whether RJ has drawn his merc's name in little lovehearts all over his room."

"Fu— Screw you, no I don't."

"He definitely does," Magnolia stage-whispered as she walked by, only to blow MacCready a kiss when he squawked indignantly.

Pen snickered sleepily in Hancock's arms, at home in the smell of Mentats and shotgun shells, but still nodded when he asked, "Drinks?"

"Definitely," MacCready agreed, a little too keen to change the subject. "Who's paying?"

"I don't have two caps to rub together," Pen murmured, smiling when Hancock pressed a happy kiss to her hair. "I'm unemployed."

MacCready's face lit up when he realised what she and Preston must have talked about. "All right! No more weekly treks to Sancutary – hey, let's do a bounty together."

"Sign me up," Pen said on a yawn, her face half buried in Hancock's neck, lazy kisses pressed to his throat as she added, "In a week, or two."

"We'll call it three," Hancock said, voice low and rasping and sending shivers up Pen's spine.

MacCready made a face at them and scampered off to the bar, loudly ordering three drinks and putting them on Hancock's tab.

Kelvin was laid out on a sofa, gingerly reaching out for a beer with a very long straw, whilst Delisle threw nuts for Newton to catch in his mouth, Fahrenheit occasionally throwing a hand out to catch them when they missed their mark.

It was warm, and full of laughter, Daisy watching Wedgwood perform card tricks at the bar, and Magnolia flirting with an unremarkable man in the corner under Charlie's watchful eyestalk. Even Ham came down for a drink when Amari and Kent showed up, the former throwing small, grateful smiles their way and the latter getting into a heated conversation about superheroes with MacCready.

Somewhere along the way, it had become her home.

"Hey," Pen whispered, catching Hancock's attention after he finished some silent conversation with Fahrenheit across the room. They were sat at the bar, Pen having crawled her way onto Hancock's lap as soon as he had sat down, and it put them on a level when he turned to smile at her. Gold glints jumped in jet-grey depths, and Pen felt as if they sparkled in her own chest, as if the world was dark without them in it.

Daisy had said that bright sparks still existed, and Pen was holding onto them so tightly that they burned.

The burn was good, it meant she was alive.

"I love you too, kitten," he murmured, smile growing even as that undeniably adorable flush stained his cheeks.

"That wasn't what I was going to say, but it works," she laughed, and when he raised a questioning brow, she nudged her forehead against his. "You make me damn happy, too."

Hancock's grin was perfect. "Yeah?"

Pen hummed a delighted agreement, and when Hancock's fingers toyed with the edge of her shirt and his smile pressed against hers, she added quietly, "We can have that shower soon, too."

"I'll ban Fahr from usin' all the hot water next time." Hancock gave a soft laugh, loath to move away from her lips when she didn't want to stop kissing him – even if she had done a half-arsed job of cleaning up in freezing cold water, but Hancock simply kissed the spots she had missed and called her stunning. "Maybe a nap first though?"

"Yes, please," Pen sighed contentedly, and settled in the crook of Hancock's arm, warm, well-fed, and just a little bit battered, a bit more scarred, and quite a bit bloodied, but that was life.

The ice of her past seemed far away now, and her future felt full of fire, some of it gunfire, some of it campfire, and some of it the fire of a ghoul in a red duster who had hunted her across a desert.

Pen thought the fire was beautiful, and she told him so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know Wat, in "A Knight's Tale," and Chaucer? That's how I picture Fahrenheit (and Hancock) vs Deacon. [Here's a gifset](http://comehitherashes.tumblr.com/post/154152724458/a-knights-tale-2001-wat-and-chaucer) to prove it! [Here's another!](http://comehitherashes.tumblr.com/post/154186086978/i-couldnt-help-myself-a-knights-tale-scene)
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> I won't lie, I haven't written het smut in ages and it's super hard (pun definitely intended). I hope you enjoyed this behemoth of a chapter tho. In the mean time, I'll be doing some Fallout prompts for Pen/Hancock, gen Goodneighbor crew, and a few Nick/Hancock ones for the festive period, so keep an eye on my [Tumblr](http://comehitherashes.tumblr.com/) if you're interested!


	18. Midnight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S HERE, I'M STILL HERE. Just about, anyway. This was difficult, both in the writing and the living, so it's turned into two chapters with even more ghoul hanky panky in the second - and final - one! Thank you for waiting, and thank you to InkQuery for keeping me grounded when the wind grew tough.

> I walked across an empty land  
>  I knew the pathway like the back of my hand  
>  I felt the earth beneath my feet  
>  Sat by the river and it made me complete
> 
> \- Keane,  _'Somewhere Only We Know'_

Hancock didn't know what other ghouls dreamed of, whether they dreamed at all. He dreamed of the same things he always had; his parents, Diamond City, the endless Commonwealth, nameless faces in a surging crowd.

But those were nightmares, and these days they were rare. Instead he had dreams, he dreamed of Goodneighbor, he dreamed of his friends, of his family, of the open road.

He dreamed of Pen, too.

He still had the odd nightmare, but so did they all, so did Pen, and he liked being the one she woke up to – even if he did once wind up with a pistol to the face, her blue eyes wide and her apology quiet and raw when she curled against his chest.

It went both ways, Pen had coaxed him down from the rough edge of a night terror, complete with the sharp edge of the knife he had grabbed, and they had all heard each other's fevered shouts throughout the night. Anyone that didn't want to sleep wasn't alone for long, silent company under the stars, a grateful smile and a shuddering toke on cigarette or bottle.

They all had their horrors, their demons that chased them into the waking world like ugly hounds snapping at the feet, or a warm kitten cuddling into a hip.

Hancock frowned, trying to push away the vestiges of sleep, but all that managed to bat away the shadows were pale paws and a heat that burnt away the dark. It radiated up his side, pinpricks of light in his chest and a fire across his thighs.

A brightness speared the dead forest of his mind, a cat of lightning that clawed at the bark and cleared away the brush. It whispered in Pen's voice, touched with Pen's fingers, and kissed with Pen's lips, and Hancock sighed her name in his sleep.

This was a better dream – unless it was that dream where Pen turned into a deathclaw, that one wasn't fun. Hancock had a lot of imagination to work with, and a damn lot of experience to back it up; when his dreams were good, they were  _great_. He knew where Pen liked to be touched, and he knew where he liked to touch her, where he  _wanted_ to touch her.

Hancock liked starting at her mouth, teasing a smile to her lips with kisses that ended too soon; Pen would lean against him, fingers pulling at his duster, demanding more in hot little breaths. There was always a flutter in her pulse when he went to her throat, just under the sweet line of her jaw, and Pen held her breath as if waiting for him to bite.

There was some serious joy in making her want the big, bad ghoul to sink his teeth into her pretty, pre-war jugular.

Reality ended there, but for the few feverish grips in dark alleyways and breathless laughter on the odd chilly night. Pen gave as good as she got, but she wasn't used to riding the edge like he was; anything she started, he finished, and then he finished properly, in private, later.

He was close to finishing now, embarrassingly soon if he had been awake, but even the thought of Pen got him achingly close, and dreaming of Pen tended to finish him off entirely.

Fuck knew what he would do if she was actually there, actually with him; say, curled up against his side.

 _Oh,_ oh shit, Pen was curled up against his side and he was dangerously fucking close to shooting in his pants.

Hancock came to with a groan smothered against his fist, feeling hot and heavy and  _fuckin' hell_  he was hard. This wasn't unusual, he had been here before, with and without Pen half on top of him. It was second nature for him to slip off before she woke up, his back against a store room door, his palm around his cock, and Pen's name in every harsh breath.

He was gentleman, but he wasn't a damn saint.

Except normally when he woke up with a fucking radio tower in his trousers, Pen wasn't making her own way there, Pen who rocked slowly against his thigh with a slight frown on her brow as if caught in some dream dilemma.

It must have been some damn dilemma, and Hancock would have happily lent a hand if every single shift of her denim-clad hips wasn't sending him crazy.

Pen always called him warm but she felt like a brazier right now, and he was caught under the seductive heat of her leg, the pale curve of her arm over his bare chest, as if she needed him close by.

As if she was dreaming of him, red and ready.

"Christ," was a soundless whisper from between his teeth, his hands clenching instinctively. Except one was in Pen's hair, and for all she froze for a moment – near giving Hancock a panic attack as he tried to loosen his grip – she pushed harder against him, asking for more. So he gave it, just a slight tug on her scalp, and Pen practically purred.

He was a dead ghoul, a dead and very fucking close ghoul.

This wasn't right, even if it felt right, even if it felt very fucking right, but not when Pen was asleep, not when she hadn't  _said—_

Hancock let out a hiss, like a kettle releasing steam even when it was still over the fire, and tried not to move. He wouldn't move, he would  _not_ move. He would stay here, gritting his teeth, and then he would slip away when Pen was finished.

 _Finished,_ right, because he was just going to experience that as if it wasn't like a small sun exploding in his arms.

Pen's breaths were getting shorter, and sharper, and Hancock stared intently at the ceiling, trying to think of terrible things. Freezing water, chem shortage, Fahrenheit in the shower.

That one worked; he was almost out of the danger zone, he could do this, he could be totally impartial to Pen rocking herself to orgasm against his leg, he could just commit this to memory and then spontaneously combust a little later, this was fine. It  _was_  fine, until Pen made a noise he had heard in his dreams.

She keened, soft and eager, and her nails dug into his chest.

_Yes._

"Fuck!"

Pen jerked awake in surprise, that gorgeous noise still caught in her throat as she blinked dazedly around the room. There wasn't any danger, not from anything that wasn't a slim package that packed a punch to his nervous system, and slowly she turned her attention to him, to his eyes squeezed shut and his tongue clamped between his teeth and…

A slowly toppling radio tower, which, really, was  _not_ the impression he wanted to give off, here.

Pen had seen, she had to have seen, but when Hancock could blink without seeing mushroom clouds on his eyelids, he was too busy looking at the stormy tint of Pen's eyes, at the ruffled blonde hair that fell haphazardly about her face.

Pen looked damn good in glow.

"Shit, sorry," she whispered, and looked between him and what was probably a damp spot. "Sort of sorry."

"Why're you apologisin'?" Hancock rasped, wincing when she sat up and it left him twitching in a cooling, sticky puddle. It was worse when she slipped off the bed, every movement giving him shockwaves as Pen shoved a hand through her hair.

"I, um, I think I just…" Pen trailed off with a flush the same colour of a sunset, bold and beautiful, and then she laughed, both hands over her eyes as if too shy to say the words out loud.

_Came so pretty that just the sight had him reeling?_

"Yeah, I know, so did I," he admitted, his grin easy when she peeked wonderingly at him. "S'alright, you weren't usin' me, it was mutually beneficial."

Pen snorted, and despite the heat she felt in her cheeks – and everywhere else – she was pathetically grateful for how simple Hancock made everything; even if the storm in her head was a complicated one. "Mine's a little easier to clean up."

Hancock winked at her, ever so comfortable in skin turned rosy. "You're welcome to help me out, kitten."

Pen opened her mouth to say something that was probably going to be very witty, but Hancock flicked the top of his trousers open and she couldn't find anything to say, not when he was laying there looking like a hot mess and damn well unashamed of it.

For good reason, too.

He hadn't looked like that in her dream, he had been in the shower, in the makeshift downpour that served as Goodneighbor's waterworks. It was supposed to have been her turn, but she had let him go first, and then joined him under the spray.

It was an idea that had played on her mind for a while, ever since she had first seen Hancock in the rain, but she hadn't worked up the nerve to do it yet. So instead, like a fucking coward, she did it in her dreams. They were freeing, those dreams, the only ones she had that weren't nightmares, but they felt like a far cry from reality.

In real life, Pen had questions, she had qualms and queries and quivering fingers. In her dreams the water was always the right temperature, she always knew what to say and what to do, and Hancock was her constant, just as he always was. The water would sluice the ridges of his skin, turning the soft scales slick and his callouses into a wet drag across her hips.

The detail of her dreams would have been embarrassing – it still sort of was – but the sight of Hancock on the bed, looking just as wrung out and contented as she did was enough to take the sting out of it.

Until he had offered to do it again, this time with them both awake, and she hesitated for so many reasons, so many qualms and queries and  _fuck_ her fingers were quivering.

There was a theme with her little fantasies – aside from them all featuring a handsome ghoul who made her knees go numb – and she wasn't sure what to do about it, wasn't sure what to do when those callouses actually touched her skin and all she wanted was fucking John Hancock.

Which was  _exactly_ the problem.

Pen nearly jumped a mile when someone slammed an open palm on the door, the only warning before jiggling the doorknob.

She opened the door before it could be kicked in, and Fahrenheit gave her a disappointed look for ruining her fun, until she peered at Pen's face and started to smirk. "Looks like you might need some cold water, damsel."

Fahrenheit might be tough as nails, but she wasn't Hancock, and only Hancock made her forget how to speak, so Pen raised a brow as if she wasn't burning from the inside out. "Move along, Fahrenheit."

Fahrenheit's grin was all teeth – no doubt from whatever bet she had just won. "Fine, but I've got a job for you. Basement, urgent."

Before any questions could be asked, Fahrenheit hefted a bucket of water from beside her feet and slammed her way into Kelvin's room. Pen shut the door on the furore and looked back to see Hancock smirking at her, arms behind his head and trousers dangerously low on his hips.

No one should look that gorgeously debauched, it wasn't fair.

"That's going to chafe," she blurted, aiming for some sort of normalcy, but when he went to get up, all languorous limbs and lidded eyes, she opened the door again.

As if he knew exactly what her dream had been about, he called out with a rough edge to his voice, "I'm gonna have a shower!"

Pen ran down the stairs with a familiar keen in her throat and thought herself a dead woman.

 

* * *

 

Hancock was spending too long in the shower, but judging from the way everyone else had been woken up, they weren't going to need the water.

Besides, he used the irradiated stuff, there was more of that and he didn't need to worry about not opening his mouth under the spray. It made it feel warmer than it was, the hint of rads a slight hum against his skin, the way Pen hummed when he touched her.

Hancock grinned under the water, the faint morning light streaking in through the windows as he thought of the hungry gleam in Pen's eyes, a gleam that grew hungrier by the day. It was too long of a shower, but he had time, and temptation was only a hot grip away.

If he grunted Pen's name, it washed away with all the evidence, and he wondered when she would join him in here, whether she was tempted, whether it was what she dreamed of.

It was an obscenely long shower, but he thought he deserved it.

Hancock whistled as he returned to his room, fingertips pushing at the marks Pen had left in his chest, fading all too quickly for his liking. She would make more, because Pen was possessive too, he had seen it, whether it was killing a man who threatened him, or baring her teeth at a woman who flirted with him.

It was Hancock's favourite thing to see, along with the way she moved, and the way she smiled, and the way she looked at him, and— He almost stubbed his toe on a box outside his door, a note written in Pen's handwriting attached to the top.

_This came from one of Stockton's people, let me know if I need to duel with his daughter at dawn._

Hancock smoothed his fingers over the note with a grin, thumb pausing over the heart Pen had signed her name with. It wasn't something he had seen before, but it made his own do a little flip.

The box, though, that was a less friendly unknown. Hancock warily pulled it open, and gave a short, wondering laugh when he saw what was inside. It was a matter of moments to get dressed, but he paused at the dresser, at the sight of Pen's rifle next to his shotgun; it was bizarrely sweet. Forget his'n'hers sinks, this was way better.

Hancock grabbed an extra shirt along with the contents of the box, and set off to follow the faint sounds of commotion coming from downstairs. Kelvin was lounging by the open front door, his scarred brow raising over a pair of sunglasses at the sight of Hancock freshly showered and relaxed.

"S'all right for some," Kelvin grumbled. "I've been up ages."

Hancock smothered a smile and popped a cigarette from his pocket, a second for Kelvin. "How much I gonna win if I bet you're still damp?"

"A  _bucket,_ Boss, s'outta line!" Kelvin exclaimed, puffing miserably on his cigarette. "How come you escaped?"

"Pen saved me," Hancock answered, and this time his grin couldn't be helped. "Fahr must've got to you first."

Kelvin gave a grunt that said he'd lost a bet, but settled on his haunches to carry on drying off in the sunlight. "Nah, she got Delisle first, she's sunnin' on the wall."

"What about Newton?"

Kelvin tipped his sunglasses down, smile sadistic. "Why'd you think Fahr was awake? He started it."

Hancock snorted, a wince on its heels. "She's gonna be in a great mood then."

There was a burst of laughter from the basement, a few thuds that might have been bodies or boxes, and Kelvin settled back into his seat with an amazed shake of his head when Fahrenheit let out a bark of laughter. "Think Pen might be magic."

"She is that, Kel," Hancock murmured, okaying a few changes to the guard roster before heading downstairs again, creeping down the last few to see some of his favourite people in the redone room. It was a makeshift library now, dusty shafts of light coming from the tiny high windows, and apparently the boxes were finally being sorted out.

Well, Fahrenheit was carving letters into the shelves with a knife, Daisy was excitedly flicking through books, and Pen was the only one actually ordering things, muttering something about dew and decimals under her breath.

"Here you go," Daisy rasped, "you've finally got a job here."

"You mean aside from being our resident damsel in distress?" Fahrenheit taunted, and caught the slim paperback Pen tossed at her head. " _How to Deal with Stress?_ Right comedian, you."

Pen snickered, and then looked back to Daisy to ask dubiously, "A librarian?"

Daisy shook her head, arms spread wide with a book in each hand. "You're out findin' books, you're lookin' after 'em, you're the new curator."

"I ain't paying you," Fahrenheit announced, and then glanced at a greying book about building a business. "Unless we're going to start charging people."

Pen snorted, picking through another box to stock a shelf. "We'll need more books in that case."

"More books is a good idea," Daisy started, but Hancock shifted his weight and the three of them looked up at the creak of floorboards.

Pen's face lit up at the sight of him, even though it had only been a scant hour, and it confirmed the ridiculous feeling that filled his chest every time he saw her; she felt it too.

Fahrenheit looked very tempted to throw a box at him, but Daisy simply chuckled and took the book Pen had been holding. "Go on, I know the organisin' system, doll. Make yourself useful, Fahrenheit."

Hancock leaned against the doorframe, one arm above his head and the other behind his back, smile undeniable when Pen bounded over to him. "I've got somethin' for you."

Pen settled into her hip, teeth at her lip. "I bet."

Hancock huffed a laugh, gaze appreciative when she looked his freshly showered-self up and down, that little gleam back in her eye again. It was a drug in and of itself, not as unsteadying as Jet, but sweet and sharp like Mentats.

Time was when Pen might have flushed at one of his lines. She still flushed, but she flushed when she said a dirtier one back, too. They flowed from her tongue, quicksilver and sharp, at odds to the molten warmth of her eyes, but all uniquely Pen.

Hancock cleared his throat, aiming for composure. "You remember when Lucas was here, Stockton's trader?"

"Vaguely, he wouldn't sell you something," Pen answered, small frown creasing her forehead as she thought back to Covenant, to the new trade deal with Bunker Hill.

Hancock nodded, and flourished his wrapped gift from behind his back. "Turns out he was holdin' out on me for good reason."

"How cryptic of you," Pen commented, gingerly taking the bundle from his hand and laughing when she realised what the wrapping was. "Are you giving me one of your shirts? I was just going to steal one."

Hancock had to take a second, had to give that mental image of Pen in his shirt – only his shirt, and maybe the hat – the time and attention it deserved, and then he blinked when Pen gave him a sly smile. "Uh."

"Uh, indeed," Pen murmured, but her smile faded when the shirt finally gave way, and she was left holding a leather sheathe, the black version to the greying one for her pistol. She glanced at him, and then a fingertip touched the holes in a silvered brass hilt. "A trench knife?"

Hancock nodded, tongue against his teeth when Pen didn't react. This wasn't a bunch of ragged flowers and out-of-date bubblegum, this was something he had thought about. This  _meant_ something.

"Give you a bit of power behind your punch," he offered, smile anxious when she glanced at him again.

The holes in the hilt were small, too small for his fingers, but a good size for hers, and she flexed her knuckles when the hilt slipped home. The silver bands gleamed about her fingers like rings, the blade brighter still, but neither compared to the slow, delighted smile that dawned across her face. "I love it."

"Really?"

"Yes," she announced delightedly, and laughed when he continued to stare worriedly at her, her spare hand reaching out for his, reassuring and affectionate. "I haven't had a gift in over two hundred years, and this is one I can  _use_."

Hancock sighed in relief, his chuckle quiet when he realised that she was pleased  _because_  it wasn't some gaudy gift or a useless memento. "I'll teach you," he said seriously, but when she raised a brow, winked obligingly.

Pen glimmered happily at him. "Maybe I'll take you up on that."

She attached the belt to her thigh, the mirror of her pistol, and he congratulated himself soundly at the picture she made. Although even his lewd inner voice went quiet when she drew the blade again, wrist twisting fluidly as she tested it, changed the height of the holster, drew it again.

"You look good with a knife," he commented, just on the hoarse side.

"Not sure I'll use it much," she replied thoughtfully, her fingers gripping the hilt almost hesitantly at first, and then comfortingly afterwards.

Hancock shrugged, happy that she had something for when shit hit the fan again – and it would, it always did. "It's there for when you need it."

"A sobering thought," she said quietly, but smiled when he couldn't drag his gaze away from her fingers around the hilt, smiled again when he shrugged unabashedly, and finally pressed that smile against his. "Thanks, rascal."

"I'm glad you like it," he murmured happily, and when he would have absentmindedly taken his shirt-wrapping from her, she held onto it with a nip at his mouth. "Keepin' it?"

"Yes, I didn't think you'd mind."

"Not at all, kitten," he laughed, and opened his eyes just in time to catch a book that Fahrenheit had thrown at his head. He threw it back without breaking Pen's kiss, and slid his fingers into Pen's hair just to hear Fahrenheit's disgusted noise – and Pen's pleased one, the same one she had made earlier, asleep and aroused.

If this was the rest of his life, he would die happy.

"I need to get some things from Sanctuary," Pen said, and Hancock tried not to look as if she had slapped him about the face at the sudden change of topic, at wanting to leave so soon. "Will you come with me?"

He didn't quite sigh with relief, but he perked up, smile wide. "Sure thing, kitten. This count as part of our three-week holiday?"

Pen tilted her head to the side in faux thought, pushing her cheek closer into his palm. "Well, we'll avoid any underground operations and focus solely on the rabid dogs and deathclaws, so… yes."

"Oh, good, I was worried we'd have to do some actual work for a moment."

"The horror," she laughed, bright and easy.

"I just gotta clear it with Fahrenheit—"

Pen tugged at his fingers, stopping him right in front of her. "I already did."

Hancock raised a brow, glancing over Pen's head to see Fahrenheit rolling her eyes at them – and Daisy with the grin of a ghoul who had won a lot of caps – but Fahrenheit gave him a nod.

"Bring him home safe and sound, damsel."

Hancock puffed up, feeling loved. "I knew she cared about me."

Pen glanced up at him, smile at her lips as they went back upstairs. "She was talking about my dog."

"Oh."

 

* * *

 

It was too soon to be out on the road for Hancock, he liked a few days of rest, a few drinks, a few chems, a few more of those heated looks Pen kept giving him. It felt as if even his long shower hadn't washed all the dust away from last time, but there was something about the open skies that still managed to get his blood pumping.

Or perhaps that was Pen's doing, because she was dancing in the light rain and he wondered whether she had ever done it naked.

One day.

Hancock cleared his throat. "You're gonna get burned if you're not careful."

"You'll tell me when the rads hit," she murmured into the rainfall, and then slid him a sly glance when she remembered what she knew about ghouls and rad storms. "Maybe get a little burn of your own, hm?"

Hancock narrowed his eyes, smile a wry thing even as he watched Pen's hair get darker, watched her skin shine under the spray. "Who told you?"

"Wedgwood."

Hancock huffed a laugh, unsure whether to buy the ghoul a drink or maybe throw it at him. "Should've known."

Pen flushed for some reason, and he wondered what heated little thought suddenly went through her head. Perhaps he'd buy Wedgwood that drink after all.

"Was it a surprise, the first time the rads hit?"

Hancock opened his mouth to reply and then couldn't help his grin at the memory. "Yeah, one hell of a surprise. Good one though, ghouls don't need pills to get it up."

Pen's hand went to her face and she laughed through her fingers, the pink of her cheeks peeking around the edges. Hancock liked watching Pen laugh, especially when he had caused it, but he was starting to like telling her about ghouls, too. She accepted it all, and damn if he wasn't tempted to exaggerate a little.  _Radiation made the roaches bigger, right? So imagine what it did to my—_

"I guess pre-war ghouls don't need their meds anymore," Pen said thoughtfully, oblivious to the laugh track in his own head. "Thank fuck I wasn't on any, I didn't have enough caps for Wealths' insurance."

Hancock shrugged, knowing that not everyone was as pleased as he was with their lot in life. "Going ghoul clears up a lot of issues, but it makes some, too," he offered, wanting her to know the extent of it. "I'm sterile, for one."

It had never been an issue for him, but for most ghouls it wasn't a choice made at the end of a syringe, and for most humans a new generation was a good reason to screw.

Hancock watched Pen's brow carefully, it raised for a moment and then it fell, without the portentous  _snikt_ of a guillotine blade. "Makes sense, I suppose, that much radiation," she replied, and when he went to ask her how she felt, she smiled at him. "Me too, but less atomic bomb and more sharp scalpel."

It surprised a chuckle out of him, another when she accepted yet another facet of his life. "Next you're gonna tell me you can see really well, too."

"You'd be surprised with what we used lasers for back in the day," Pen drawled, but sighed happily when the rain picked up a little, falling in big drops against her skin. "Isn't it awkward if a rad storm hits when you're, uh, out and about?"

"I'm used to ridin' the edge of pleasure," he teased, pleased when she snickered. "I like a chase."

"Is that so?" It was an interested question, but before he could answer it, he saw only a glimmer of her smile before she flicked her wet hat at him. In the few seconds it took him to blink, she ran, and it was like a fire to the fuse, rads to the ghoul, blood to the shark, and Hancock wanted to  _taste_.

Perhaps being out on the road had its perks.

Pen was just a hair faster than him, quicker at turning around the tight corners, but when she ducked inside a dilapidated building he was stronger on the stairs, and he caught her at the top with a breathless laugh, marvelling at the way she immediately relaxed into his grip.

Until he crowded her against the wall, one thigh between hers and his teeth millimetres from her lip, and she tensed ever so nicely against him. "Nice try, kitten."

"I let you catch me," she whispered, and he had to kiss her smile, had to bite her for being cheeky and far too fast.

Her skin was damp as he left her lips to kiss along her jaw, a slight chill from the rain but warm underneath, her heartbeat a familiar skitter when he reached her throat.

A breathless little noise left her lips, and Hancock called it forth again with a nip to her jugular, the same place as last night. It was a needy sound, and Hancock was generous to a fault, so he mouthed at the darkening mark, stark against the paleness of her skin.

There was that possessive thrill again at seeing it there, just as there was another when Pen's fingernails dug hard enough into his arms to leave those marks that would fade all too soon.

Hancock had rebuilt a town, he had saved a people and been saved by them, his name was said worriedly by some and roared happily by others, he was a ghoul who fought for what he loved.

He was fucking putty in her slender hands.

He would kill for Pen, he would snarl and throw knives and jam a flag with his face on it into a pile of raider bodies just to see the feral flick of her smile. Pen  _had_  killed for him, she had snarled and strapped a knife to her thigh and designed a logo for the town that looked a little like his face when seen from far away.

 _Mine,_ his mind whispered, brutal and bloody, but his hands were careful as they swept down her waist, his thumbs hooking in her jeans so that his fingers could spread under her shirt.

They had been here before, Pen's hands tight on his duster, each time pulling him a little closer, closer together, closer to something that had Hancock biting off a hundred swear words in every sharp breath, echoed in Pen's quieter ones.

The Commonwealth wasn't a quiet place, it definitely wasn't a safe place, so it was instinct to keep one ear cocked for noise, even when every single other instinct was cocked for something else entirely. There were scuffles down the street, the occasional pop of gunfire, but for all they both tensed, they didn't move apart.

Pen pressed slow, scorching kisses along his jaw, and Hancock exhaled like a man lost.

"You taste nice," she whispered, one hand going to her pistol, just in case they were interrupted, but the other pushed hard against his heart, pressure and pleasure in one. The thumping thing nearly jumped into her fucking hand when she licked at his skin.

Pen liked rain, she liked water, she liked watching him after a shower, too. It was something about the way the water slicked his skin apparently.

She had told him that when she was drunk, he hadn't planned on putting it into effect so soon.

"Those are probably rads you're tasting," he chuckled, and she pulled back in surprise with her tongue still peeking from her lip. "A little bit is fine, s'already in all your food."

"I suppose," she murmured, but nibbled at her tongue uncertainly. "That's left a bad taste in my mouth."

"Not literally, I hope." Hancock grinned when Pen gave him another kiss to put any worries to rest, and then he held out a packet of Mentats, wiggling it when she bit her lip thoughtfully, when she glanced out the window at the distant sound of voices.

"What if I get addicted?"

"No different from Nuka Cola, darlin'," he assured, but knew she had far too much willpower to fall for anything too dangerous – apart from him, of course, as she enjoyed telling him. He raised a brow when she took a blister pack. "Can't believe it's taken you this long."

"What do I need chems for, I have you," she teased, a quick little wink that made him grin happily. "Your kisses are pretty laced, anyway."

He liked the sound of that, and he liked the look of Pen carefully chewing a tablet, brow furrowed as she tried to taste every aspect of it.

He'd be lying if he said it wasn't a little bit erotic, that and the way she caressed her pistol as she thought.

"I don't feel any cleverer," she muttered, and then winced at her own word. "Maybe it doesn't work on me?"

Hancock shrugged, hand tangling with hers to bring her closer. "You're already too clever for me."

Pen laughed quietly, voice lowering to a whisper. "You are too charming for your own good, do you know that?"

"Oh, I've never claimed to be good, darlin'," he purred.

"Yes, so you keep saying," she snickered, blue eyes lidded. "The big, bad ghoul with a heart of gold."

Hancock wasn't sure whether to preen or to flush – or to make her promise that she wouldn't put that sentence on the town flag – so he bit her full lower lip and growled, "Chem kitten."

"What?"

At the confusion on her face, he gave her a long, slow kiss, and murmured, "You're a chem kitten now."

"It was one Mentat!"

"Chem kitten," he said adamantly, enjoying the indignation that flushed her face, enjoying it even more when he could taste Mentats on her tongue, when she bit him almost hard enough to hurt.

They both froze at the sound of footsteps on fallen rubble.

"Search the place, we need more food."

On the tail of one smoke-roughened voice came another, grumpy and gritted. "M'tired of rations, thinkin' of joinin' the Gunners."

When the first scavver cussed that scandalous statement out, Hancock's hand slipped to hers and pushed it to her knife, reminding her it was there, if she needed it. If she needed to bury a blade in a living being. She grimaced, and Hancock kissed her, too briefly for the panic in her heart, too briefly when he slipped out the window and disappeared from view.

They had done this before; he would take out what he could and herd the rest to her – except normally she didn't have a talented ghoul's teeth marks burning deliciously on her throat.

Hancock's knife was an extension of his arm, and hers felt like a two-ton weight pulling on her fingers. She needed to practice more, but she hadn't want to practice on a real person, not yet, and now she might pay for that ignorance. Pen set up shop opposite the stairs and palmed her pistol automatically. There was a faint thump from below, another followed by one of the raiders berating the taste of whoever had lived here once.

He called out for the other, and when there was no answer, Pen knew Hancock had found at least one of them. Progress was slow going when she couldn't hear him, couldn't  _see_ him, and she resisted the urge to shift her weight from foot to foot on the creaky floorboards.

There was movement on the street, a flicker from the corner of her concentration, so Pen pulled her rifle from her back, eye to her scope to see another three walking down the road.

Hancock was right, guns would have only drawn more.

There was a faintest breath of wind against Pen's ear, and she turned just in time to stop her scope from being forced into her eye. Instead the stock was shoved against her throat, a dirty bandana pressed forcefully against the other side.

It caught her arm awkwardly between the two, but it kept her breathing a little longer, kept her from going down like a sack of fucking potatoes. The raider was stronger than her, her feet sliding in the dust until her shoulders hit the window, the glass creaking in protest as a foul-smelling grunt stained the air. "Nice gun, bitch."

If she'd had any breath left to speak, she might have taken offense to that, but she was too busy trying to keep one hand between her rifle and a crushed windpipe, whilst the other slid down to her pistol.

Shit, wrong side— Knife.

It slid easily out of its sheathe, the metal cold around her fingers as she slid the hilt home to her knuckles, and then home again amidst black spots that danced in front of her eyes.

The raider squealed like a pig, and Pen knew she had stuck him wrong. Hancock's lessons floated through her head but she couldn't grasp anything, so instead she grasped the knife again and rammed it upwards, slicing the raider's waist open like a zipper.

As soon as the pressure let up, she twisted her wrist, the blade twisting too until it caught on something tough, a rib or an organ. The raider's next noise was hoarse, breathy, and she knew she'd hit a lung, knew she'd damned him to a slow and painful death.

Her rifle nearly fell to the floor when the raider sagged, when he clutched at the hole in his side with dirty fingers, ignoring her in the hopes of stopping his insides from falling out. It was better that he didn't see her, didn't see her remembering what to do next.  _Point down, aim for the heart._

It was harder without him up in her face, without fighting for her life, but his hollow breaths were echoing around the room and she was glad when they stopped, even if it was with a gurgle. The last time she had held a bloody knife in her hand had been after Covenant, trapped in a raider maze and hunted like a rabbit. It had felt worse then, dirty, now it felt… not clean, but deliberate, defensive.

She still didn't like it.

At a creak on the stairs, she had the bloodied blade brandished in one hand and her pistol in the other.

Hancock opened the door to see a warrior on the other side of it, a warrior with a body at her feet.

"I got the jump on 'em downstairs, one must've got past me," he murmured, stepping over the slowly growing pool of blood to reach Pen, to hold the hand with the knife in it until her knuckles loosened from their death grip.

"There's more down the road, I was watching them when he caught me," she answered, her gaze trailing over Hancock to check that he was okay even as she holstered her pistol and rubbed at her neck.

Hancock frowned at the pinkish spread, but caught her eyes when she thumbed at his mark, when she inhaled at the burn. It was an effort not to make another on the opposite side, but he caught her lips in a kiss, concern burning into contentment.

"I need more lessons," she said against his mouth, a smile curving her own. "I forgot everything."

"S'to be expected, you've not been usin' it long." Hancock pressed a kiss to her jaw and sighed in relief when she curled against his chest, her cheek against his heartbeat. There was less of an adrenaline high this time, caught out unprepared and Pen using her knife. Still, he looked down and had to admire her efforts. "You catch him in the lung?"

Pen hummed an agreement, and he felt her smile when he complimented her work. It was far more up close and personal than she liked, but she was learning, she was surviving, and despite a little shudder when she glanced at the blood dripping from her blade, she straightened with a sigh.

"I suppose I need to name it now."

Hancock passed her a rag to wipe the blood off, and frowned. "What?"

"It's tasted blood," she replied, as if it was obvious, "I have to name it."

Hancock raised a confused brow. "Why?"

"That's the legend, all the greatest blades get named."

"Oh." Hancock glanced at his own myriad knives and then shook his head in wonder, unable to help a smile when he saw Pen's concentration on this apparently important task.

"It's no white-hilt, and I didn't exactly pull it from a stone," she mused, turning it this way and that, the faint red gleam catching the light. "It's more of a mercy blade, I don't like using it."

Hancock knew that, knew she preferred to use her silver tongue than a silver blade, preferred to use her words than a weapon. Just like that, he knew what to call it. "It's not a sword, but you should call it Sword."

"Why?"

Hancock grinned widely. "'Cause the pen is mightier than the sword?"

Pen stared, and opened her mouth twice before pointing the blade at him. "I love it."

Hancock laughed happily, fully expecting her to berate him for his shit pun, but she murmured the blade's dubbed name and slid it back into its sheathe, looking like the warrior he thought her. "It really does look good on you. You did great, considerin'."

Pen glimmered at him, bright amidst the bloodied room, and held out a hand for him to take as they left. "I have an excellent teacher."

Life was good.

 

* * *

 

Life was shit, and Sanctuary was shitter.

Admittedly it wasn't Sanctuary's fault that it wasn't Goodneighbor, but Hancock still didn't like crossing the bridge, feeling as if his back was vulnerable. In its defence, it had undergone some upgrades since he had last visited, it was starting to look less like a settlement and more like some semblance of a town.

Pen's hackles had gone up a mile off, her fingers tight in his, but they relaxed a little when they spotted Preston waving from one of the new guard towers, and then she let go completely at an approaching bark.

Joy lit her face when a black and brown dog came bounding up to her, and Hancock couldn't help but smile at the sight.

Pen fell to her knees, smile wide when the dog quickly ignored Hancock to greet her. "Hello, baby boy! I've missed you so much, yes I have!"

It was such typical dog chatter that he had to laugh, and that was when he remembered that she had left a dog behind once before, so it was no wonder she adored this one so.

"This is Pound," she announced, still gleeful as the dog jumped in her arms, but Hancock lowered a brow in thought.

"Uh, pound, like, where they used to keep dogs?"

Pen snorted into the dog's fur, another when it whined at Hancock's feet. "No, hell no. A pound was currency in my country, so—"

"Penny and Pound," Hancock interrupted, his smile soft and indulgent. "Cute."

She bared her teeth at him in a mock-growl, so he said it again when she came back to him, and he didn't think he could be faulted for kissing her, for pulling her close with one of her hands fisting around his belt.

Perhaps cute wasn't quite the word.

Pound followed them to the house, prowling in first to check for danger as Pen threw open the windows, sneezing at the dust until Hancock laughed, "What, no maid detail?"

Pen gave him an unimpressed look as she swept a few curtains aside, letting the dying light stream in. "Why, are you offering?"

Hancock spread his arms wide. "My services come naked an' free."

"You can keep the hat on."

"That's a given, kitten," he promised, winking when she flushed, which was when he realised that he couldn't hear any settlers outside. In fact, he hadn't seen anyone in the houses nearby, either. "It's quieter here now."

"Sanctuary is spreading, it's getting big." Pen touched a large crack in the wall, the peeling paint around its edges. "The new houses are safer, sturdier, the old ones are mostly for storage, barracks for traders or passing patrols, but this one," she murmured, somewhere between forlorn and fond, "this one is still mine."

"D'you want it?"

"I'd feel strange about losing it, because it isn't mine at the same time, it's my brother's. I only have a few things left to remember him," she said, sounding sad as she touched the dog tags still about her wrist. "He wouldn't want it to go empty though."

Hancock offered her a shrug, a hand to hold. "We still have people out this way, Sanctuary's become a big marker on the map, keep it for you an' yours."

"Ours," she said softly, and it rang with an importance he might not have noticed from anyone else.  _Ours_ meant something different two hundred years ago, but these days it was a simple fact, just as his room in Goodneighbor was theirs.

Pound came to help them pack, seemingly loath to leave Pen's side now that she was back – and Hancock empathised with the pooch, he often felt the same way – but they both simply watched as Pen went through a few boxes. She didn't have much stuff, a few sentimental things he teased her over, like her favourite pillow –  _not me, kitten?_ – and a sleeveless jacket she called a gilet.

Some things were too important to joke over, the picture of her and her brother, the dog tags she didn't remove from her wrist.

She left the birth certificates, left her passport, and dropped them back into the safe with a quiet, "I'm not that person anymore."

"No, you're mine," he said easily. Pound pushed his head between them with a whine as if it to say,  _ours._

Pen's laugh was a little wet, but it was confident, just as her nod was, just as her hand was when she relocked the safe and pet her dog.

 _Their_ dog, apparently.

"Fahrenheit's so excited to meet you," she crooned, laughing when it earned her a lick, again when Hancock looked up in surprise.

"Wait, what?"

"That's what cleared our little excursion, I told her about Pound, she insisted we go up immediately to get him – although she immediately forgot his name and called him Dogmeat."

Hancock huffed a laugh, that name familiar to him. "It's Fahr's thing, she likes dogs, saves 'em when she can, but they're always called Dogmeat."

Pen's smile softened, touched by an aspect she hadn't known of his rust-haired shadow. "We can call him that."

"It's your dog, kitten."

Pen looked down to scruff the dog's head, laughing when he lolled against her leg. "He's his own dog, he just has good taste."

The dog  _did_  have good taste, he seemed to like Hancock, more than he liked Preston who came up to greet them with a friendly smile. Hancock had to admit that he was a little surprised at the reception, he wasn't sure what reaction he would get from the Minutemen; he was half expecting the local rag to claim that he had stolen their leader.

He had, after all.

Preston wanted to show Pen the new buildings, and even asked Hancock's opinion on a few security-related issues. In the man's defence, he was doing a damn good job, and he was picking up on all the settler slack now that Pen had gone, which left them a lot of time to hang back and flirt as they walked.

They stopped for kisses in secluded corners and shared hot-eyed glances across rooms. When Pen was trying to talk business, Hancock would slide a hand up her spine or wink when he caught her eye, and when Hancock got caught up in a conversation with a budding trader, he broke off midway because Pen had drawn her knife and blown him a kiss with the flat of the blade.

More fevered kisses, more snatched moments in the shadows, Pen calling them teenagers, Hancock calling it love in his silliest voice just to see her smile.

All of a sudden, it stopped, and Hancock wasn't sure why.

It stopped after Pen had excused herself to use the bathroom, and she kept fiddling with something in her pocket whenever she looked at him.

It was still a warm-eyed look, still trickled down his body like warm water, but it was tempered with something thoughtful now, something…

Nervous.

Hancock didn't like it, it made him nervous too, and when he was nervous he was uncomfortable, and unhappy, and unsure.

He wondered whether someone had said something to her about a ghoul in their town. He still received a few wary looks from some of the settlers; the guards were fine, the traders better, but the odd few whispered behind their hands or gave Pen a weird glance.

Hancock knew what people said when ghouls and humans got together.

It was bad enough then, but Pen was in a league of her own when some people considered her pre-war and pure. It seemed a bit fucking hypocritical that they wanted her back now after treating her like shit for all the time she was here.

Pen was his, was Goodneighbor's, and he didn't bother hiding his smirk when Pen pressed a kiss to his jaw in full view of everyone and whispered,  _bed?_

Getting out of what seriously looked like a fruit judging competition was good in his book.

Pen's bed wasn't as big, but it was comfortable enough, strewn with blankets and pillows – although she threw most of them to the floor whenever he was around. They were scattered around their feet as Pen lit the low lantern, pulled the curtains but kept the shutters open, faint firelight coming through in warm colours.

Hancock threw his jacket at the coat hook, fingers at the buttons of his shirt when he turned around to see Pen staring oddly at him.

Well, not oddly, he was very fucking familiar with that look, it was the one she gave him when they flirted, when she pressed close against him, when he murmured her name against the soft skin of her ear. It was the same look he had seen in her eyes this morning, awash in afterglow and hungry for more. What was odd about it was because it was from across the room and not close enough for him to kiss.

"What're you doin' over there?" Hancock asked, pleased that her reticence from earlier had disappeared, pleased that the day was over at last and he could finally get back to kissing Pen uninterrupted.

He liked kissing Pen, he liked the way that every time he did it she arched a little harder against him, whined a little louder when he stopped. He was a patient ghoul, he had learned to wait for his highs, to wait for his dealer to come by, and now he waited for his favourite dealer to give him the word.

Pen did words, he knew that, so he waited, and he watched, and he built up a fuckton of really interesting ideas as he did so.

So when Pen simply watched him unbutton his shirt, it was an act he was very much in favour of, until he forgot to undo the last one when Pen mirrored him, when her fingers shook just a little, when she smiled and Hancock could only blink.

This had happened before, in a way, because privacy was difficult when you quite literally had to watch each other's back, but normally it was brisk, it was done with a wink and a joke, it was out on the road or in between bounties, it hadn't been done in the safety of Sanctuary, never in soft light and  _that look_ in darkened blue eyes, and never with Pen's shirt slowly falling from her shoulders.

_Oh._

Oh,  _fuck._

This wasn't words, this was action, he was supposed to likeaction, but now he had neither, no words and no actions and nothing at all in the empty space of his head except for the way the light caught Pen's curves.

It wasn't supposed to be here, in Sanctuary, where he was looking over his shoulder every five minutes. It was supposed to be in Goodneighbor, after they'd had dinner together and he'd sourced some of that dusty red wine she liked so much.

How the hell did she keep surprising him?

He stared like an idiot until Pen pulled a little foil packet out of her pocket, the one she had been fiddling with all evening, and Hancock stared in surprise at what was definitely a condom, stared more when he realised that she had been  _planning_ this. "I told you I was sterile, kitten."

Pen laughed a little nervously, but the look she was giving him was anything but, it was keen, and eager, and just a tad wolfish. "You're also a ghoul."

Hancock frowned, unable to look away from Pen's teeth at the edge of the plastic casing, her nose wrinkling at the smell, his heartbeat a staccato drumming in his ears. "I don't get it."

Pen paused, wariness finally accompanying the flush on her cheeks. "Aren't you made of radiation?"

"Made of—?" Hancock gave a startled laugh, another when he could breathe easily again. "You drink Nuka-Cola, but you're worried about gettin' a few rads from me?"

Pen's mouth twitched, her gaze dropping for a fraction of a second. "Okay, fair point, but what about the… rest of it?"

 _Subtle, kitten_ , he almost teased, but decided against it when he realised she was genuinely worried, and it wasn't as if he had a clean rap sheet in that department. The doctors of the Commonwealth weren't just used for the common flu, after all.

"I don't get sick, Pen. Ain't no disease that can live through the radiation chompin' at it."

"Bet that's what you say to all the girls," she murmured dubiously, but then eyed the packet in her hand suspiciously. "This was probably out of date anyway."

Hancock gave her a grin, but when she didn't immediately come over to him, he offered anything that would stop her from overthinking it. "Look, we can go find a doctor if you want, s'not like we'd be the first to try this out."

"I know, I don't need to see one," she answered, and when she tried a smile, it was lopsided. "You ruined my plan, I don't really know what to do now. You're over there and I'd rather you weren't."

Hancock felt the same way, his fingers curling in on themselves with the desire to hold her, but he stayed where he was, worry and want coursing through his body in equal measure. He didn't want to fuck this up, he didn't want to fuck up this one, glorious part of his life.

Hancock forced himself to take a breath, and his voice was hoarse in the warm emptiness between them. "What d'you want, kitten?"

"You," she said easily, giving him a grin with a nibble of her lip. "I want you, I just don't want to fuck this up."

It was so painfully honest that he had to smile, a knot loosening in his stomach, another when she held a hand out, imploring him to take it; it was already second nature to twine their fingers together, to slot her against his front as if she belonged there. "Me either, but I promise I ain't got any extra limbs."

Pen raised a brow, laughing when he weighed his head to the side, and laughed again when he pulled her close and murmured,  _apart from that one._

"I'm still dressed—"

Hancock had to kiss her, had to kiss the nervousness to her smile, the same nervousness he felt in his own stomach, like those irradiated butterflies he always joked about when he saw her after time apart. They settled as soon as he touched her, because he knew this, he knew  _her._

"We can deal with clothes later," he murmured, already entertaining ideas of finally being able to undress her without then needing to stick a needle in her skin.

"Wait," she said when he would have nudged them to the bed, and he couldn't help the stutter in his breath when her fingers brushed down his chest, the hint of nails against his stomach as she undid the last button of his shirt.

Stormy eyes caught his as she slowly pushed the ruffles aside, her skin softer than the shirt, her kiss softer still, sure and steady and sweet. It lessened the ragged edge to his desire, turned it determined rather than desperate, covetous rather than carnal.

Pen was here, and he remembered the last time he had been here with her in Sanctuary, counting the hours until dawn, and knew that whilst tomorrow would come, so would other things before then – if his sanity could take it, that is.

Of course, Pen's hands weren't sliding to his belt last time, making quick work of a knot that he thought had been infallible to anyone other than him, and he wondered why that was so erotic. Pen's quick, deep breaths seemed loud now, his own quietened with focus, with trailing a single fingertip from the dip in her collarbone down past the cloth of her bra.

It was like touching silk, and suddenly his own breathing was loud again.

Pen pushed into the palm at her cheek, bone-deep shivers wracking her body, but she was warm to the touch, hot when she kissed him. It was anticipation, and she scowled when he laughed low in his throat. "This isn't my first time, for fuck's sake, hurry up."

"Ain't you the demandin' one," Hancock murmured, and for all it made him want to growl happily, it also made him slower, made him surer, because this was Pen, like a dawn he had never seen before and a drug he couldn't wait to lick, to linger over, to learn its every facet. "Who even said we were gonna do anythin' tonight?"

Pen looked at him as if he had just said he had decided to become a murderer, and when he carried on his slow perusal, she groaned, "You're killing me."

"That's the plan."

Pen pulled him to the bed, smiling smugly up at him when he automatically followed, loath to part from the welcoming warmth of her. The smile turned to a scowl when he framed her knees with his, lengthening their little game as long as he could, because he knew that if he pressed himself fully against her then he might just do everything she asked of him.

She curled a hand around his arm, the one braced by her head, and her nails bit into his wrist in silent threat.

If it was meant to make him groan, then it worked, but he earned one of hers when he hooked a finger under the waistline of her jeans. "D'you wanna take these off, or should I?"

"I want you to fuck me," Pen snarled, and he might have laughed if it hadn't sent a bolt of heat to his cock. "I've asked nicely."

"That wasn't nice, kitten," he murmured, trying to be admonishing and failing spectacularly when his body twitched.

Pen's grin was feral, and she slid a hand down his stomach, a heated handful of fabric between her fingers in a moment. "Very nice, if you ask me."

"You are so fuckin' impatient," he laughed, surprise a brightness that flickered through the hunger. When she shaped her palm against him and he thought he might die there and then, he caught her hand with his and held it by her head. "Behave."

It took him half a second to worry, and another to realise that Pen's pupils had blown wide, the length of her body stilled and waiting, waiting to see what he would do next. Hancock knew what he  _wanted_  to do, he wanted to tilt her jaw to the side and place his teeth on her neck, hold her in place and suck on the mark he had made earlier until she promised to stop hurrying him.

"Pen," he started, a strangled plea for help when he didn't know what she wanted, when he was trying so hard to hold himself back. Everything was answered in the lift of her chin, the baring of her throat, and Hancock fell like a starved sailor to fresh water.

That one little move made him her slave.

"Jeans off," she whispered, the end of it peaky when he licked at the marks his teeth had made.

If he was torturously slow in sliding the denim down her legs, it was just as agonising for him, agonising to see the dip of her hip bones that he wanted to kiss, the thickness of her thighs that he wanted to bite, and the way she lifted into his hands so that her jeans slipped off entirely.

Pen glowed pale-bright in the flickering lantern, and Hancock's fingers were reverent when he swept them across her skin.

"You're staring again," she said softly, a hint of annoyance in it when she realised he had taken a step back from that ragged edge. It earned her a greedy grin.

"I've 'ad a long time to think about what I wanna do to you, kitten, an' I've got all night."

Pen's eyes widened a little, questions at the tip of her tongue,  _how long, since when, what is it,_ but all that left it was, "Can we skip to the end and then do the rest after?"

Hancock pressed a kiss to her sternum, and sighed happily. "Nope."

Pen's irritated growl only encouraged him, but even he had to think that she had a point when her legs snaked out from between his and caught him against her, her smile satisfied when he leaned in and groaned.

She was so very soft, not just the softness of a woman, warm and welcoming, not just the softness of pre-war skin, milks and creams, but  _Pen_ soft, the mewls that left her throat and the arch of her back that enticed him onto her, his weight seeming too much against the fragility of her until she hooked her knees against his hips and rocked up into him, soft and sure and solid.

It was agony to pull away, worse when Pen complained in wordless noises, but Hancock had a plan, probably. It was a plan that involved touching his fill and  _not_ embarrassing himself by finishing the second he slid inside her.

That was the plan, and it was a good one when Pen wasn't whispering demands into the skin of his wrist, when she wasn't digging into his shoulders and coaxing him down for kisses. They were warm and wet, just like the rest of her.

"Jesus Christ, Pen, please, you're gonna kill me."

"Good, we can go together," she panted, and grinned when he raised an eyebrow at her, at the gleam in her eyes and the wildness of her hair. Instead, he kissed a line from the tender part of her throat, stopping to mouth at her collarbone before finally getting his teeth on the curve of her waist.

Pen had silvery lines about her hips, half hidden by her underwear. They were slimmer than scars, fainter than old wounds, and she huffed a breathless laugh when she saw him looking at them.

"Food used to be easy to come by," she murmured, a shiver tensing her body when his fingers brushed across the taut lines of her skin and the soft curve of her stomach. "Yo-yo dieting is a lot harder these days."

Hancock tilted his head at the quiet deprecation in her words, and simply pressed a kiss to the silvery marks, thinking them just as beautiful as her scars, as the sparse dusting of freckles and the strange black line that curled around to the front of her thigh.

It was a mystery for another time, when he wasn't in serious danger of ending this all very suddenly and quite stickily. Pen seemed to realise when he had to take a breath, had to take a moment, because a smile curved her lips. "What, I don't get to pore over you?"

The very idea had him groaning. "You can, kitten, but I might need a minute afterwards."

"We have all night." Pen laughed, but she stilled at the look in his eyes, and he wondered what she saw, whether she saw a ghoul or a man in nature, whether she liked what she saw, or whether it scared her.

"All night ain't enough."

Hancock's voice had lowered to a rumble, and Pen felt it reverberate through her, felt it in the tremble of her stomach and the honeyed heat between her thighs.

Pen saw a lion at the foot of her bed, with eyes of reflected gold and scars of wars waged.

She had known it would be different after the war, known it would be different with a ghoul, but that wasn't why she couldn't catch her breath, that wasn't why her skin felt too hot and still she shivered, it was because of Hancock, he was the difference.

A predator in scarred skin and perfection in his grin.

Hancock touched her stretchmarks as if they were interesting, touched her appendix scar as if it was art, and when the drag of his callouses caught on the soft cotton of her underwear, she nearly scarred him some more with her nails.

Pen strained against his fingers, urging him lower in every desperate breath, so utterly responsive that he had to fight not to push a sweetly curved thigh aside and simply take her.

She felt like liquid heat, sweet and sticky when he dipped past damp fabric and made her cry out with a too-harsh touch. It was addictive, he couldn't help himself, and he would have pulled back if her hand hadn't gone to his wrist, holding him there.

"Again?" Hancock asked, needing to be sure, needing to hear her say it, but Pen only nodded, a strangled agreement his only answer.

Hancock pressed two fingers against the wet warmth of her, lost in the feeling of molten silk against his rough skin, and felt Pen's nails bite into his wrist, pushing him to move, pinpricks of pain feeling like lightning bolts.

"John,  _please._ "

He was gone, his plans ruined, and he did as he was told.

Pen almost laughed in delight, the sound wrecked and reedy as her body curved upwards, ready to snap at any given moment. Hancock tried to learn her, tried to learn  _here_ instead of  _there_ , but Pen rocked against him and ruined his rhythm, keening when his fingers picked up the pace, when he couldn't help himself, lost in the sights and sounds of her.

There was a clench at his wrist, another in her moan, and then she came apart underneath him, eyes squeezed shut and scream soundless.

It was fucking beautiful.

It was beautiful and he was rutting against the bed, savouring the ripples of her orgasm and fully intending on wrecking another pair of trousers entirely on his own. Fuck the laundry bill.

Hancock choked on his next breath when slim fingers suddenly framed his erection, straining against the fabric as if she had misjudged, as if she had meant to slide her fingertips down his bare stomach and take him in her hand, pale bands around reddened flesh, and then Pen squeezed.

 _Fuck_ barely escaped his mouth before he came against the imprint of her fingers, his spine a tight line as he thrust into her hand, between her thighs, where he wanted to be. It was his fourth finish today, but caught in Pen's grip with the scent of warm rain and gun oil in his nose, it was the best yet.

It crackled like a fire pit, warm and hazy against the night sky on a languid come down. Hancock nudged at her neck, pressing languid kisses to his mark as she swept her hands up his sides, fingers testing his skin, soft on his bones and squeezing at his muscles, petting him, exploring him.

His smile was lazy, pleased that she liked touching him, and refusing to move until she had finished, even if it meant he was stuck in another pair of fucked trousers. It was worth it, worth it for the afterglow, for the sounds she made, for the smiles she gave him.

"That was fun," she murmured happily against his cheek, and laughed when he whole-heartedly agreed, when he wanted to sink against her for a short nap and have some fun all over again.

They had walked almost non-stop today, with little food and a lot of action – not just of the bloodied raider kind. Pen needed rest, she needed to rest until they got back to Goodneighbor and he could make good on some of those things he had been promising her lately.

Hancock pushed to his knees, sorry to lose the warmth of her. "I'm gonna clean up."

"There's water just outside, I'll get—"

Hancock silenced her with a kiss when she went to get up, caught her smile with his teeth when she tried again. "S'fine, get some sleep."

Pen raised an eyebrow as she looked him up and down, and then narrowed her eyes when he grinned. "Will I need it?"

"We've got knife trainin', don't we?"

"Not the weapon I had in mind," she drawled, and tried not to yawn as he laughed. It didn't work, she yawned twice, and held him by the fingers when he turned around, tilting her chin up for another kiss.

He fell a little more in love with her every time she did that.

She watched Hancock walk out, watched the lanternlight flow over his back, catching the curves and the corners, and shivered without him nearby. If she had her way this wouldn't even have been an interval, but for all the prospects of things to come both tantalised and terrified her, she found Hancock's hesitance rather sweet.

Until the next time she wanted to climb him, then to hell with his hesitance.

Pen had a plan, and she settled against her favourite pillow – the other one rummaging around outside – with a satisfied smile, content and without a care in the world.

Why should she? The big, bad ghoul with a heart of gold made everything simple.

Hancock cleaned himself off as best as he could with a bucket of freezing cold water and the wide world able to see him doing it, but he didn't care. The clothes went over a chair, hopefully to dry before tomorrow, and then he was stopped short at the bedroom by a whine.

Pen's dog pawed at the door, and didn't seem to care that there was a naked ghoul in the way, nor that Hancock was quite clearly trying not to let him in.

The dog sneaked past his legs with a happy wag of its tail, and curled up beside the bed, loud sigh making Pen stir. Sleepily, she squinted at him. "Are you… Are those my brother's boxers?"

"I dunno, found 'em in a drawer," Hancock answered, trying to peer at the pattern he couldn't make out. "Is that weird?"

"A little," she mumbled tiredly, but once he had stepped around the dog and got into bed, she clambered half on top of him anyway. Pen had dragged his shirt on, the ruffles tickling at his chest – an odd feeling from the other side of the shirt – and her bare legs entwined with his.

Hancock suddenly doubted his self-control, but Pen's breathing evened out before he could even slide his fingers over her thigh. He did it anyway, and when she murmured happily, a loud sigh broke the silence.

Hancock glanced down to see a pair of eyes watching him from the floor, and he laughed quietly into Pen's hair.

Maybe not with an audience.

"Night, pooch."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I say this every time, but seriously, those of you who comment are the brightest of stars in my life. The world can be dark and deep and ever so burned, but knowing you enjoy the tales of these two makes it all worthwhile. Thank you, and now I will reply to you all, because I like to give you a new chapter before I do! <3


	19. Rhythm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here at last, you've all been so patient, but here at last is the actual hanky-panky - realistic, sweat and swearing and giggles hanky-panky at that. Please know that the lyrics from this song made me snicker so much, because I'm immature, and smut is the perfect time for puns. Also if anyone has a pic of Hancock in a crown, I'll write you a ficlet for it. 'Cause… wow. Lazy grin, battered throne, fur ruff on his duster, shiny crown… Oof.
> 
> As always, thanks to inkquery for betaing, thanks to misanthropiclycanthrope (if he ever gets around to playing Fallout and reading this) for keeping my spirits up, and thanks to YOU, readers, because your comments make my life a better place <3

> Well it don't take but a crack  
>  To drop on the kingdom  
>  Don't take but a queen  
>  To make that kingdom come  
>  I'm a jack of all trades, master of none  
>  I am the one who's gonna get all the fun done  
>  Wild honey, wild honey, wild honey
> 
> \- Hugh Laurie, ' _Wild Honey'_

The day could have dawned with a burned-out sun and a million deathclaws on the horizon, but Hancock still would have woken with a smile on his face. A smile on his face, Pen on his chest, and a dog on his feet.

The latter lifted an ear in greeting and settled back in to snooze, clearly having no plans to move in the next hour or so. It was a plan that Hancock could readily agree to – although he could have done without the thin line of drool that dripped onto his bare leg.

Even then, he couldn't raise a scowl, because Pen's thigh was thrown over his, and every shift of her smooth skin against his made him  _remember_. Pen's fingernails on his wrist, silken heat against his palm, and the sight of her coming apart underneath him. It had been a fucking beautiful sight, and he could quite happily see it forever.

It wasn't often that Hancock wanted some pre-war technology, but he would have liked a camera right now. A snapshot to keep for when Pen was on the road, another of the pair of them to slip into her pocket.

Hancock absent-mindedly patted Pen's PipBoy and wondered where he could find a photographer.

Pen stirred under his chin, and Hancock looked down with a ridiculously soft smile and felt guilty for disturbing her. Only a little guilty, because it was getting late and he wanted to be back in Goodneighbor by nightfall.

Pen woke up with a luxurious slowness, a put-out pout on her lips at the soft streams of daylight through the curtains. They rarely had this sort of morning, there was always something at the door. Super mutants, raiders, Fahrenheit.

Sanctuary had its benefits, especially with Preston at the helm and everyone else too scared to disturb a merc, a ghoul, and a bloodthirsty dog.

"Y'sure this is the same dog that wrecked Corvega?" Hancock looked dubiously at a lolled head and happy, panting tongue. Pen made an affirmative noise, so instead he looked dubiously at a half-naked woman curled tight into his chest.

"Looks can be deceiving." Pen smiled when she opened an eye to see him staring at her.

"That they can be, kitten," Hancock replied, a hoarse note to his voice when she stretched. The ruffles of his shirt fluttered against his skin, a long length of pale muscle that sighed happily with her face in his neck.

It was fucking bliss.

"I'm guessing that's not your drool on my leg," Pen murmured, and when he laughed aloud, he could feel her grin.

"Nah, not this time." Hancock gingerly nudged the accused with his foot, only for the dog to roll atop them both, staring quite contentedly at Hancock upside down. "This ain't gonna fly in Goodneighbor, pooch."

Pen snickered, nosing at his jaw as if she couldn't help it, just as he couldn't help lifting his chin to encourage her. It was worth it when she pressed warm kisses to his throat. "Think Fahrenheit's going to steal him?"

"Yep," Hancock replied, his sigh a little affectionate – affection for his best friend, not for the mutt who licked lazily at his knee. "He can go cockblock her, instead."

Pen started to shake, and Hancock got up on an elbow in concern before he realised she was trying not to laugh, one hand smothered against her mouth. "A dribbling dog at her feet might ruin her look."

Hancock started to grin, pushing some fallen blonde hair behind Pen's ear when she tipped against him with a snicker. "Nah, Fahr's like one of those bugs that eats its mate, still gets on though."

"I feel like she'd take that as a compliment."

"She would," Hancock replied, unable to stop himself from stealing a kiss when Pen sat up. She gave it so easily, not seeming to realise that every single one of them was a gift, a gift given to a ghoul who hadn't known what easy kisses were, kisses that lingered, loving and languorous.

Pen had swept into his life like a fork of lightning, and he was the tree it had struck, but  _fuck_  the burn was glorious. She struck him anew every time he looked at her, claws of light seared onto his eyelids instead of mushroom clouds.

Pen made his fucking heart clench.

"What time is it? I overslept, I think," Pen murmured the last to herself as she slipped off the bed, and Hancock leaned back with his arms behind his head, admiring the view.

"Only a little, we'll still make it back by dark."

Pen hummed an inquiring noise and padded happily about the room in his shirt, bared to the very tops of her thighs as she got some clothes together. Most of it was staying here, but a few things were coming with them.

The backpack with her few possessions in it was hung up on the same peg as his hat, the picture of her and her brother safely wrapped up inside. Hancock already had a frame in mind for it, he just had to do a little digging when they got back.

In the meantime, he was quite content with watching Pen dress – which involved taking his shirt  _off_  – and having one hell of a time. She didn't turn to look at him, but she didn't turn away either, giving him ample view of pale, slightly scarred skin in the dusty sunshine.

The marks he had made last night glowed like tightly furled rosebuds amidst cream. The largest was on her neck, and he wondered if Pen knew she absent-mindedly touched it as she moved, savouring the warmth of a carnal bruise.

Hancock nudged at the heavy, drooling weight on his legs with a brief, pleading glance, but even the dog seemed to remind him about how they had to get to Goodneighbor by nightfall.

This was why they put those velvet ropes around beautiful art, something about it just made people want to  _touch._

All of Hancock's thoughts derailed quite suddenly at the mental image of velvet ropes, and as if Pen had sensed the crash, she winked at him somewhere between  _clothes off_ and  _clothes on_.

The dog rolled away with a reprimanding whine when he stood up, but Hancock didn't care, joining Pen across the room to slip a hand over his mark and tilt her head for a kiss. It was hungrier than before, his fingers sliding heavily down her curves and lingering at her underwear.

Pen had taken his shirt off with confidence, explicitly aware that he had started mapping her body the night before, but now she shivered, rocking forward to press against him. "I thought we had to get dressed?"

"Yeah, but only so I can take 'em off later," he teased, and when Pen tightened her grip on his shoulders, he was half tempted to do away with the middle man and take advantage right this second.

Pen was inclined to agree.

Hancock had swaggered off that bed like a giant cat, all loose limbs and lazy intensity, brushing the bruise on her throat until she wanted to keen, wanted him to make another. Instead, his thumb smoothed over the healing burn mark on her cheek, soft and gentle, and then he kissed her like it was a prelude to sex, wet and wanting.

Hancock turned her brain to mush, and she didn't much mind.

Putting on clothes was an exercise in patience when Hancock was around, mostly because she could feel his eyes on every bit of exposed skin, but also because he kept stealing kisses every five seconds.

Again, she didn't much mind.

When they finally emerged, it was to see Preston hovering in the street looking slightly scandalised – a fact that made Hancock grin outrageously and ask the Minutemen's new General if he had slept well.

Pen didn't bother telling him off for teasing Preston. It wouldn't have worked anyway, because she was trying not to laugh. Instead, she cleared her throat and asked about the house, asked about keeping it open for her friends.

Preston's prudishness faded into paranoia. "What friends?"

Hancock tried not to frown, but he did settle his weight a little closer to Pen, wordlessly backing her up when Preston looked set to hand out the ID cards and ban anyone from Goodneighbor.

"No one I wouldn't trust with my life," she said easily, and when Hancock raised a brow at her, she added quietly, "I've run out of hands so I'm onto my toes."

Hancock snorted, hardly surprised she was already edging into double figures when it came to trust. It was a good thing, hopefully. Besides, he quite liked it when she was on her toes, it normally meant she was stretching for a kiss, and so he was a little distracted as Pen talked settlement shit.

A few people that Hancock vaguely recognised joined the conversation, the engineer teasing Pen about something fruit related.

The laziness Hancock had indulged in when inside turned abruptly lethal, and the only reason he could discern was because they were outside, exposed, vulnerable, because they were around strangers, and these strangers were ignoring him.

Pen was still holding his hand, barely an arm's length away, but he wanted to pull her closer, have her rest against his front as she talked, have Preston back the fuck up.

Hancock didn't want to share.

Preston was shooting him odd looks, but Pen only glanced at him once before standing exactly where he wanted her, as if she knew, as if she was thinking the same thing.

"We'll use codewords or something, they'll be safer here than on the road," Pen continued as if nothing had happened, but her thumb stroked his and he breathed a little easier. It would be better if they just left, but with Pen this close he could see past the irrationality.

He shook off the last of it and, with his chin resting on Pen's head, added, "We'd offer the same in return."

A flicker of shock crossed Preston's face, followed by some hearty disbelief – not of the offer, but of its reception around Sanctuary. "That's generous of you."

Hancock didn't take offence, they had worked hard to keep Goodneighbor safe from prying eyes, and to be safe, you had to be dangerous.

"I can't say I'll take you up on that offer, I'm not sure there's many Minutemen willing to step into Goodneighbor for safe harbour," Preston continued, a diplomat's version of  _hens don't hide in the fox den._ "Still, thank you."

Hancock inclined his head, expecting the answer. It meant they would continue to trade with Bunker Hill as their buffer, shielding them from needing to step into Goodneighbor proper. Stockton was making a pretty penny from people's fear, but then, that was the world.

Still, people didn't look that afeared as they left Sanctuary, they waved goodbye to Pen, an aspiring trader called out a goodbye to them both, and the guards on the bridge gave a mocking salute that made Pen scowl.

"Make it last, darlin'" Hancock laughed, tugging on Pen's hand. "No one salutes in Goodneighbor."

"Good," she muttered, but still lingered on the last wooden board, the last step out of Sanctuary. Hancock waited for her, pretending that he had to fiddle with his duster and throw a stick for the pooch. Even he had to admit that it felt strange this time around, more… permanent.

Permanence wasn't something that meant a lot, these days, though. Everything changed in some way or another – adapted, acclimatised, just like Pen, just like him. Hancock smiled when Pen took a deep breath and tangled their fingers together, leading him towards the horizon.

Sanctuary didn't feel so vulnerable anymore, and it had more good memories than bad, these days. Hancock glanced sidelong at Pen. Very good memories, in fact.

The walk to Goodneighbor suddenly seemed far too long.

Pen leaned in without thought as they began their journey, Red Rocket disappearing behind them and her hand bracing on his chest as if she had done it a thousand times before.

The number was certainly getting there, before the day was out if he had any say in the matter. If anyone other than Pen called him needy, he would shoot them, but here, walking together under a burning sun and knowing he didn't want to stop touching her, he could admit it.

Pen had to sidestep when he tugged her closer, but she brushed a kiss against his cheek and settled at his side, assuaging the need borne deep in his bones. It had been there before, but now, with the carnal memory of her underneath him a red wash across his senses, he felt greedy.

Pen was finding it quite funny, because she couldn't go ten seconds without her big, bad ghoul closing in for a kiss. Mayor of reprobates he might be, but the only trade agreement he was signing at the moment was how often he could touch her. She decided to let him figure the terms out for himself.

She'd been a goner from the first time he had held her hand.

Pen knew that touch wasn't a normal thing these days, knew she had startled Goodneighbor with her hugs, knew she had annoyed MacCready with her constant leaning against him, knew that Fahrenheit kept a good distance between them in case Pen should  _try any of that cuddly shit_ with her.

They had gotten used to it though, started reciprocating, started initiating, and Pen felt a warm glow in her chest whenever one of them absent-mindedly reached out for a one-armed hug upon her return, or rested their weight against hers of an evening. It was healing, for all of them.

Wedgwood and Daisy were used to it, a reawoken sense, and for all Fahrenheit maintained that she was a cuddly plague, even Goodneighbor's rust-haired shadow had started taking a few extra seconds before shoving someone away.

Hancock, however, went from ten to sixty in the short space of a day, and she'd be lying if she said she didn't like it. Acclimatising to something a little different from nukes and knives, but infinitely better.

It surprised him, she could tell, the need to touch, the ferocity of it. Pen was used to the hand-holding, had expected the crowding, the closeness, the pushes for her attention – he was a ghoul who knew what he wanted, after all. The kisses had been a shock though, the amount of them; she wasn't sure she had even seen anyone else kiss in the Commonwealth, but Hancock seemed to have a particular taste for it, for her.

Sometimes she could predict it, his fingers in hers or the warmth of his gaze, but most of the time he surprised her. There was a hesitancy after he did it, as if unsure he was allowed to demand her time, so suddenly and so often, but it happened again and again and Pen kept letting him, kept adoring him.

They might have been doing this for a while now, the flirting and the flickers of something deeper, but with the memory of him braced above her burning deliciously in her mind's eye, she realised she had gained something she hadn't realised she was missing.

She felt truly happy for the first time in a long, long while.

There were still worries, concerns for the Commonwealth and their friends, for Hancock, for herself, but they seemed a little easier with her hand in his. It had taken time – two hundred years and then some – but it was all worth it when she caught Hancock's eye and he pulled her in for another kiss.

She held a ghoul's golden heart tight in her hand, and she would kill to keep it safe.

 

* * *

 

They had an hour or two of light yet, but Pen seemed to dawdle once they reached the city's edge; her gait got a little slower, stopping often to scavenge, and at one point she even paused to point out a pair of radstags nibbling at a shrub.

It was oddly serene, her fingers squeezing his, her sigh soft at the sight of two irradiated creatures doing something  _normal_ , and he found he wanted to linger in the moment. It meant that the journey was taking far longer than he wanted.

The pooch soon spooked the stags, anyway.

Pen yawned as they walked, doused in the occasional shadow of the approaching skyscrapers and her hat tipped low over her eyes. Hancock gave her a concerned glance, another at the fading sunlight. "You comin' down with somethin'?"

"Maybe," she replied seriously, and yawned again as if for good measure, a stretch of arms that seemed to pull a tight string all the way through her spine. "Can we stop for the night?"

The movement bared her stomach, a flash of hip bone that had him nodding somewhat dumbly.

"Sure thing, kitten."

Why had he been in such a rush again?

The closest house was a wreck, the second didn't even have a ceiling, but the third was acceptable – although Pen called it  _just right,_ for some reason.

Hancock prowled the ground floor, knife at the ready in case someone else had the same idea as them, whilst Pen murmured sweet nothings to her dog outside and gave him some food.

"Gotta check upstairs still—" Hancock cut himself off when the front door closed, the dog chewing noisily beyond it. "He not sleepin' with us tonight?"

Pen placed her rifle against the wall, and looked up at him with lidded eyes. "I wasn't planning on sleeping."

Hancock blinked, and then he shook his head with a laugh, wondering how well she could sucker him. "You even tired?"

"Nope." Pen's smile was a sly, pleased thing, her weight leaning into one hip when he lowered his bag to the floor. "Don't pretend you weren't thinking about it the whole way back."

Hancock raised a brow, closing in on the trickiest beam of sunlight he knew. "What, jumpin' you as soon as we got into Goodneighbor?"

Pen flushed, but she kept his gaze, smile sparkling. "Exactly, so I'm  _jumping_ you now."

Hearing his own word in her voice sparked a fire in his gut, hearing the intent sent it roaring through his blood. "That so?"

White teeth on pink lip, dark hunger in darker eyes. "Yes."

Hancock rested his forearm on the closed door, leaning in slow to hear Pen's quick intake of breath as he neared. It was music, she the instrument and he the enraptured audience.

"Maybe I wanna take it slow," he murmured, barely an inch between them. "Maybe I wanna take my time again."

Pen almost kissed him, a breath of a thing. "Maybe I'll let you."

His laugh was a rough chuckle, a rougher groan when Pen pushed against him, a burning line of heat down his front. "We could've done this in Sanctuary," he muttered into a kiss, desperately trying to hold onto his self-control. "All safe an' comfortable-like."

A rather insistent part of his thinking was telling him to shut the fuck up, but the rest of him felt hesitant, because this run-down shack in a dangerous part of town wasn't good enough for her. Pen needed clean sheets and a soft bed – this time, at least.

He didn't want to cause her any pain.

"I don't care where," Pen whispered with a tug on his belt, the knot falling apart under her fingers. "I just want you."

 _Well._ She knew how to make him agreeable.

Hancock hissed a breath when slim fingers skimmed across his stomach, and he tried to focus on kiss-slick lips even as his own hands went to the buttons on her shirt.

Pen squeaked in outrage. "Are you crazy? What if someone jumps us, I don't want to fight completely naked."

Hancock smirked, spreading his palms across her hips. "What, you've never killed a raider in the nip before?"

In her defence, he had a good few years on her, and he had still only managed that one kill because Fahrenheit had set the guy on fire. A glowing target was easy, even if he was still half asleep and cuddling his shotgun.

"I'll do you a deal," Pen breathed, smile wide. "I'll take my jeans off if you take your shirt off, the rest stays."

Hancock made a happy noise when she wanted to see him, wanted to touch him, but it was in his nature to push for a better deal, so he pushed his thumbs under the collar of her shirt.

"Well, I gotta undo some buttons, so can I undo yours?"

Pen tried to bite her lip to hide her laugh, but failed quite wonderfully when she went up on her tiptoes to give him a kiss. "Fine."

His smile must have been a shade too satisfied, because her nails nipped deliciously at his skin, and he wanted her to do it again. So he pushed his luck.

"You're like the prettiest present under the tree," he murmured, mouthing at the line of her jaw, savouring the blush on her cheeks.

Those nails scored across his chest, and his groan made her laugh in surprise. She kissed at the marks, and just when he thought he couldn't bear the soft, tickling pressure any longer, she scratched him again.

"I like the noises you make," she confided, her own smile just as smug as his own.

"Funny," he panted, "I was just thinkin' the same about you."

It was so tempting to tear at the buttons on her shirt, but she pushed at his chest as soon as the thought crossed his mind, arousal and anger turning her voice into a fair imitation of a growl. "I need to look somewhat presentable when we get to Goodneighbor, leave the buttons alone."

Hancock grinned at her flushed smile. "You can wear mine instead, I like seein' you in it."

A deeper flush, a pleased stain of pink across her cheeks. "My self-control isn't that great."

The thought that she might jump him for not wearing a shirt was a very important note in his mental book, along with showers and that drawling accent he had put on once.

It was difficult to not change the terms of the deal once he had undone all the buttons, glimpsing a flash of her bra between the shirt he wasn't allowed to take off, but he was a ghoul of his word, so he simply took a deep breath and forced himself to take a step back.

The view was pretty good from here, but it was better when Pen winked at him.

"Good ghoul."

Hancock growled at her, and he couldn't help his grin when she made a needy little noise at the sound of it.

Pretty, pre-war Pen liked his growl.

She shimmied out of her jeans and paused for half a second, a smile curving her lips when she straightened with her thumbs in her underwear. When she met his gaze, her blue eyes were dark with desire.

Hancock rolled onto the balls of his feet in anticipation, with the  _need_ to touch her. "You're gonna kill me, kitten."

"Fair's fair," she replied with a smooth shrug of her shoulders, sending her shirt slipping down her arms a little. "I think I died last night."

When the faded cotton started to slide down her thighs, he let out a groan, hungry and unrepentant. Pen bit at her lip, a tremor to her next breath, but still the cotton went further, until it hooked around her ankles and she stepped out so fucking delicately in this dark, dirty room.

Hancock traced her legs upwards, muscled calves and skinned knees, a bruise across her thigh, a dark line snaking around the other, and something he hadn't expected.

He quirked a brow at a slim line of dark hair, wondering how the fuck she had dared to use a blade there. Pen shifted her weight under his gaze, but when she noticed where he looked, she gave him a sheepish laugh. "I said you'd be surprised at what we used lasers for back then."

Hancock had to wince; a laser was scarier than a blade, even if it did produce pretty fascinating things. "I thought lasers were for eyes?"

Another shrug, another slip of shirt. "We used lasers for a lot of things."

It was a question for another time, because Hancock was only just holding himself back from launching at her.

Pen tried not to cover herself up; a faint breeze gave her goosebumps, but Hancock's gaze gave her shivers. It was hot and male and he  _wanted,_ wanted something she could give him and how fucking much she wanted to _._ Anticipation made her nervous, being nearly naked made her vulnerable, and some of it must have shown in her expression, because Hancock practically tore his duster off, his shirt following quickly after.

It would have been sweet if it hadn't sent her pulse skyrocketing.

She had seen him half naked before, a lot of times, but she never tired of the sight. It had been a surprise to realise that the radiation had stripped him entirely, but not an unwelcome one. No eyebrows, no eyelashes, and not a single hair marking a tantalising trail on his stomach, but the angle of his hips was enough of an invitation.

Hancock in his entirety was an invitation to her senses, but standing opposite her with his chest bared and a belt of knives dashed to the floor, his thumbs dipping below his waistband, she was scribbling her RSVP with a big, fat tick for attendance.

Hancock was almost at the end of his tether, but the way Pen had watched him undress nearly sent him to his knees – and for her, he would go gladly.

"You are fuckin' beautiful, Pen."

She flushed, he knew she would, but she bit her lip and replied, "Would you growl at me if I called you handsome?"

His brows went high, surprise a delighted shimmer in his laugh. "D'you want me to?"

Pen nodded and took a step towards him, but then yanked back when the sole of her foot touched something unpleasant. It wasn't surprising, the whole room was unpleasant, and she was so fucking beautiful and he was such a fucking wreck.

"The floor's filthy, I'm putting my boots back on."

"I am so not disagreein', kitten," he replied hoarsely, and his mouth dried completely when she straightened again.

Christ, she was gorgeous, shirt fluttering around her shoulders and wearing her combat boots, it was like a pullout from  _Guns 'n' Bullets_  – the x-rated editions he kept hidden under the floorboards.

He met her halfway, their mouths crashing together and his arms going automatically to her waist, her skin ridiculously soft against his own. It was instinct to catch her when she climbed up him, her ankles linking behind his back, her thighs solid and sexy.

This was all his dreams come true at once, bar one.

"Next time," he demanded, or maybe it was a plea, "wear the knife."

Pen laughed breathlessly, settling against him as if she belonged there, because she did. "Only if you keep the hat on."

"Whatever you want, kitten," he chuckled, not even tempted to let her go for a second just to pick up his hat. He would give her the damn world if he could, although he would happily keep giving the kisses she needily asked for, her neck tilted to the side to let him nip down her throat.

He sucked at the marks he had made last night, savouring the feel of her fingertips in his shoulders, the sound of her keening when he growled in delight.

Pen shifted against him, a beacon of heat to his senses, and Hancock cast desperately around the room. He was loath to put her down anywhere, it was too dirty, but as his eyes went to the wall, Pen's breath caught.

That was enough encouragement for him.

With one arm around her back, he braced his other hand against the wall and asked a question in a hoarse grunt. Her reply was a nod, a whimpered affirmative, and Hancock fought to keep at least some of his mind from splintering into eternity.

He thanked his lucky stars that he was strong enough to do this; muscled before the drug and wiry afterwards, the only burn he felt was delicious, one he knew might meld into an ache tomorrow, but it would be the good sort of ache.

A  _very_ good sort of ache.

The shirt she still wore was enough to cover her from the worst of the wall, and the rest was angled ever so sweetly towards him, her head tipped back and her throat bared as they both heaved for breaths.

Hancock lowered an arm, urging her to lift a little higher, his palm sweeping down smooth thigh to tighten in plump flesh. One blue eye flickered open, teeth in her smile. "Always knew you were an arse ghoul."

He barked a laugh at the surprising phrase, his breathing difficult for reasons that had nothing to do with holding Pen up, and everything to do with the way Pen was wriggling against him.

"I'm a Pen ghoul," he teased, pleased when she snickered. "Maybe soon a very dead ghoul if you don't quit movin'."

He was straining until it hurt, and every single movement was rubbing him far too close to a very complete ending. It had been a done deal the second she had wanted to jump him, but holding a half-naked Pen in his arms was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

Pen pressed a heated kiss to his smile, and Hancock realised that today was, somehow, going to get better.

Pen lifted herself up, stomach quivering with the effort, and then the nails of one hand trailed down his arm, skittering under her own legs to hold—

"Fucking hell," he hissed as cool fingers closed around his cock. His entire body tightened, every muscle locking into place even as he tried to push into her palm.

She was the sweetest drug he'd ever had.

Pen glanced down, as if trying to see what her fingers were holding, and Hancock's snort nearly sent them both off-balance, his voice already wrecked when he asked, "You okay?"

An interested hum was the answer, the only thing his brain could process right now. "Just wondering what you taste like."

His brain died a happy death.

"Fuck me."

"That's the plan," she breathed, sliding her fingers up and down his length, again when he moaned her name in desperation. He had killed raiders with his bare palms, he had held more guns than hands and carried more grenades than hearts, but he was entirely at her mercy.

At the mercy of the naked woman balanced in his arms.

"I ain't gonna last much longer, here, kitten," he admitted hoarsely, and laughed when she smirked at him, when she ran a thumb over his tip just to make him jerk. "You have an evil streak."

He practically keened too when she drew her hand away, but something about her sultry smile made him watch, made him wait, made him—

Pen licked at her thumb and murmured, "Surprise."

Hancock's mind went blank.

"Fu-uck," came out in two gasped breaths, and he struggled to draw in a third when Pen seemed to linger over the taste, seemed to  _savour it._

She gave a little laugh, something surprised and sunny, and tilted her head to the side. "You taste good."

Curses and Christs and a cartload of words that didn't even make sense spilled senselessly from his mouth, and he pushed Pen against the wall to take a kiss, to steal back some sense of sanity.

It pushed his stomach against her, warm and wet and wonderful, and she pushed right back against him, a feverish rocking he had felt against his palm only last night.

He panted, and so did she.

"Pen?"

"Yes."

It was all they needed, that and Pen's fingers around him once more, moving him, arranging him, until he felt that molten heat poised above him, until he was one thrust away from being inside her, and then he was, and the only thing he cared about was pure fucking ecstasy and—

_Pain._

It wasn't quite a scream, and it wasn't quite a whimper, but Hancock knew pain when he heard it, when he saw it flash across Pen's face and guilt smashed across his own.

She fit him like a damn glove, one that had shrunk in the wash, and he had fucking hurt her.

"Shit, kitten, I'm sorry," he rasped, his brain trying to tackle two overwhelming things at once. They were frozen in place, Pen trying to deal with the pain and Hancock refusing to move in case he hurt her more.

 _Christ,_ how he wanted to move.

Pen was a glorious warmth around his cock, heat and light and still he wasn't all the way in, she had braced against his chest as soon as that distressing noise had come from her lips.

Hancock let out a truly ragged breath, every muscle tensed so tight it hurt, but he would rather be the one in pain any day of the week. "Knew we should've done this somewhere safer."

One blue eye opened, the other still squeezed shut. "It's not the place, it's you."

Hancock blinked. "Oh."

A grin twisted his mouth, something smug and satisfied, and she huffed a pained laugh at the sight.

_Well._

He'd never had any complaints.

Hancock kept as still as he could, but when Pen's wince didn't fade, he carefully brought his hand to her face to cup her cheek. "It might kill me, but we can stop—"

He had only moved his arm, but it moved him elsewhere too, a shifting of weight, of muscle, and she arched the slightest bit. Pen made another noise, just as tight, just as tense, but this one was different.

It didn't sound like pain.

"Again," she whispered, so quiet he wasn't sure he had heard correctly. "Again, John."

"Are you sure it doesn't hurt—"

Pen stopped bracing on his chest and suddenly he was buried to the hilt inside of her, his own shout colouring the air a very different shade.

Pen's smile was open-mouthed and wild, an edge of a frown still on her forehead.

Hancock moved, and the frown melted away.

He allowed himself a breath, just one, just to make sure that Pen was okay, and suffered nails across his chest for it, so he leaned Pen against the wall and pulled almost all the way out.

A string of obscenities and religious rites sang from between her lips, his own name sprinkled amongst them like fucking sunbeams. Hancock listened like he was playing an instrument by ear, and when those high notes turned to threats, he grinned and slid home.

Lights burst behind his eyelids, the brightest blues and the glossiest golds, colours he hadn't seen since before the drug except in Pen – now, quite literally.

Simple movements were bliss when she was wet and warm around him, when her nails dug into his shoulders and her smile was so damn bright. Bright in this shitty little room with night approaching fast, but he still had his knives and her pistol was close at hand.

Pen had survived on her own for ages, one finger on the trigger and a dog at the door, but here, in his arms, she dropped her weapons and let him shield her from the worst.

He fucking adored her.

Pen was his own nuclear reaction, a series of storms that prickled his skin and left him panting, golden lightning amidst sky-blue skies, and he the arid wasteland that hungered for the rain, hungered for the hot breaths and the slick slide of skin on skin.

The rush of euphoria after a night of rad storms was nothing compared to this, compared to pale fingers pulling him closer, to blonde hair trailing between an open shirt and needy noises when he paused to take a breath. It was a whine somewhere between grumpiness and greed, and it made him laugh, so she clenched around him until he groaned.

It was her turn for a smug smile, so he leaned closer to nudge at her jaw, mouth closing over the marks on her neck, her pulse pounding against his tongue.

"Impatient kitten," he growled, and when she laughed breathlessly, he sank his teeth into her throat and started thrusting again, as hard as he dared.

Pen nearly screamed, everything squeezing tight like an arrow about to be fired, and Hancock couldn't quite hold his rhythm against the onslaught, against a storm that burned bright and held him tight.

She overwhelmed him in a way that nothing else did, his heart going a mile a minute as he overdosed on his favourite drug. Every breath was torn out of him, a hoarse wind through a pitted canyon, a rasp of snake scales over sand. Pen urged him faster, nails pulling at his shoulders, scratches down his chest until he groaned – she was learning him, a flash of teeth in her grin when he tensed, when he tried to ask for more and stumbled over his words, when he braced her against the wall and stole her smile with a kiss that burned.

Pen nipped at him, her gasp echoing his, and Hancock resigned himself to the delight of chasing this high for the rest of his life, chasing a strip of sunlight across the Commonwealth and kissing her in every storm they found.

Pen's eyes opened, endless skies that snared him utterly, and she caught her tongue in her teeth, clenching around him until he half gasped a warning and half cried for mercy. Pen was blind to it, grinding that hot little spot against him until she keened loudly, her body giving a quiver that Hancock felt against every part of him. Colours threatened to bubble behind his eyelids, golden mushroom clouds and scarlet sunsets, but he focused on lips that parted with a sweet, sinful smile, and when she whispered his name, he fell apart.

His world exploded, and it wasn't waves on the shore or flowers in the breeze, it was a thousand nukes, a thousand needles, straight into his bloodstream and threatening to kill him.

Ecstasy was the sting of a needle and the soft, sublime rush of the drug, and it tasted of Pen.

"Holy hell," he rasped, pushing his nose into Pen's damp neck, and her breathless laugh was a happy one.

The nails in his shoulders turned to fingertips, smooth little movements that felt like petting, the same thing she had done the night before. If she noticed the quiver in his legs from holding them both up, she ignored it, one slender hand sweeping up his neck to gently scrape her nails against his scalp.

It sent lightning bolts all over his body, and when he lifted his head to press their foreheads together, her smile was wide and very sated.

"You're ticklish," she murmured delightedly.

He huffed a chuckle, breathing still too shallow to laugh properly. "Not normally."

Pen hummed in interest, eyes closing as her hands swept down his chest. He should have known she'd be sweet and cuddly, but the little kisses she kept giving him almost killed him with sweetness, her fingers now smoothing along his jaw as if stroking him.

It was the sweetest comedown he'd ever had.

Pen couldn't help her smile when Hancock pushed his cheek into her palm like some great beast that enjoyed her touch. He made a happy noise, something low and grumbling, almost like a purr, and she adored it.

"Who's the kitten now?"

"Still you," he growled, biting at her lip when she grinned. It amazed her, how sweet he could be, how his smile could be anywhere between sugar and sin. He was sugar now, all sinned out – for a few breaths, at least – his arm still tight around her hips, safe and steady.

She had said he was handsome, but he was stunning, the pirate cowboy with his balance in an unbalanced world, his grey eyes aglow with ecstasy. It was a new guilty pleasure to trace his skin with her fingers, to feel the ridges, the rough silk, to map the topography of a ghoul who owned all the land he walked on.

There were so many scars, fresh and faded, some she knew the story of, some she didn't, but each was a new tale to touch, to traverse with a tongue that was getting a taste for rads.

He called her his favourite drug, but Hancock was her only one, a gateway to himself. Pen had addictions before the war, mostly sweets, the odd comic, the freshly baked bread her neighbour made every Sunday, but none were as dangerous, as delightful, as the ghoul who murmured her name in a rough, wrecked voice, and gave her a smile that weakened her knees.

Fortunately, he was still holding her up, holding her hand, as always.

Her back was going to be one huge bruise, and she was going to be tender for a good few days at this rate. Still, with endorphins racing through her bloodstream and Hancock's forehead against hers, his smile like that of a lazy cat, it was all so incredibly worth it.

"You can put me down now," she said quietly, almost not wanting to disturb him when he looked so satisfied.

"Oh, right, yeah." Hancock was careful, as careful as he could be, but she still winced when he moved out of her, when her shoulders cramped up and her feet touched floor again – but he didn't let go of her, one hand still on her hip. "You okay?"

It wasn't glamorous, half naked and quite sticky in a dark, disgusting room, but Hancock still took his time looking her over – and, yes, admittedly, she might have had a glance or five.

Suddenly, she realised why the pain made sense.

"Ow," she muttered, smirking when Hancock finally met her gaze again. "It's been a while."

Hancock grinned unabashedly. "Dry spell?"

"Cold spell, actually," she answered, an easy laugh tipping her against his chest, his arms coming up around her again.

It was easier to talk about now, the cryo, easier when she could breathe in the smoky scent of spent shotgun shells, easier when Hancock grounded her so nicely in the  _now._

Now was finding five minutes in an abandoned husk of a building, now was finding home in the arms of a ghoul, in the grounds of a rundown town and the laughter of people who had cut their eyeteeth on guns and gore.

Now, she was happy, and everything from before the war felt like a bad dream.

They all had their nightmares, but Pen was the only one with a fear of the 9-to-5.

She stretched, muttering at the myriad aches and pains under the glorious afterglow, and managed to drag on her jeans with one foot at a time in a combat boot.

Dressed, and only slightly looking like she'd been ravaged by a hungry ghoul, she clapped her hands together and turned around. "Onto Goodneighbor?"

Hancock sagged against the wall, bare back taking the chill just so he could catch his breath – and watch her dress. "You're gonna run me ragged, kitten."

She snickered, tipping his hat at him as she put on her own. "Technically you're the toy boy."

He caught her eye as he slid his tricorne onto his head. "I'll play with you all night, darlin'."

Pen sighed sadly as he put his shirt back on, and flushed when he gave her a wink.

It seemed a long way home.

 

* * *

 

The neon lights of Goodneighbor fizzed loudly, the occasional pop and crackle of sound as they approached, hiding in the long shadows of the wall.

Hancock had pulled Pen in for a kiss again, but she didn't seem to mind judging from the needy noises she kept making – so very reminiscent of the ones she had made earlier, so much so in fact that he genuinely considered making use of another wall.

They were mere metres away from a good night's sleep, but lingering for the last few seconds where they wouldn't get disturbed seemed too good to pass up.

"You're makin' MacCready sick, stop it," Fahrenheit drawled from beyond the wall, and from the direction of the sniper's nest came the faint noise of retching.

Hancock didn't pull away though, keeping Pen against him for as long he could, until Fahrenheit slammed the door open and Pen nearly jumped a mile.

"If you get killed out here then it'll look bad on me," Fahrenheit added matter-of-factly.

Pen tried her best to glare over pink cheeks, but Hancock just pulled her back against his chest and chuckled. "Good to see you too, Fahr."

Fahrenheit's expression didn't change, but Hancock saw the twitch of muscle in her cheek. "Get in."

When they finally made their way inside, it was to see a little welcoming committee, but it wasn't entirely for their benefit. They were all peering at the two of them, Daisy intently looking Pen up and down before holding open a palm and declaring, "Cough up."

A chorus of groans rang around the stone walls, MacCready making more retching noises from the nest, and Pen looked up at him in confusion.

Hancock waited for a second, maybe two, and then her eyes widened.

"Fuck."

As she tried to bury herself in his chest, Fahrenheit called out, "Well done for keepin' up, damsel!"

"You people need to get lives," Pen replied, red with embarrassment but content in his arms.

"We have 'em, they're funded really well thanks to you," Daisy chimed in, and when Pen glowered good-naturedly, she chuckled. "Sorry, doll, but we gotta bet on something."

Hancock decided to step in, mostly for points from Pen. "Bet on someone else's sex life – except MacCready's, obviously."

Everyone ignored the distant shout of outrage.

Pen, having kissed him for being on her side, walked away to give Newton a hug. Fahrenheit looked up for less than a breath before her eyes narrowed. "What's up with your foot?"

Hancock frowned in concern, finally seeing what Fahrenheit had seen. Pen was favouring a leg and trying very hard to pretend as if she wasn't.

"Nothing," she replied adamantly, but when Fahrenheit scoffed, she made a face. "I stepped on something."

Fahrenheit raised a brow. "Bare foot?"

Pen's flush was beautiful, and Hancock might have been just the tiniest bit smug, but even Fahrenheit stopped guffawing to say, "You gotta get it seen to, damsel, don't want you losin' a leg. Doc'll see to it."

Hancock looked up to see a familiar face, but Pen didn't know him, and just because Goodneighbor knew him didn't mean she liked him.

"Doc Weathers," the man introduced himself. "I'm one of Stockton's."

He was brisk, professional as he looked her foot over, careful as he cleaned the wound, but the second he wielded a needle from his bags, Pen called out nervously. "John?"

Hancock appeared with a lazy grin on his face, confidence in every step. "No offence, bucko, but I'm the only prick for Pen." As soon as the doctor shrugged and handed the needle over, the arrogance faded immediately, his smile soft and concerned. "You okay?"

Thankfully, everyone else was still arguing over caps and betting rules, so nobody heard her whining. "I'll be better when my foot doesn't cane and I don't have a few inches of metal in me."

Hancock winked at her. "A few inches of somethin' else instead, eh?"

"You're terrible," Pen snorted, and just like that, he had injected her whilst she laughed. "You're amazing."

"I know."

They sat there for a moment, letting the medicine sink in, letting Pen sink into the circle of his arms. She heard him sigh, heard the relief in it, and gave him a soft smile. "Happy to be home?"

Jet-grey eyes glanced at her, sheepish amusement in their depths at being caught out so obviously. The ghoul was back in his safety, the lion in his den and the ship in its harbour. "Yeah."

Pen tipped her head up, pressing a kiss to his jaw before pushing her forehead against his. Somewhere, someone demanded they  _get a room_ , so Pen nibbled at Hancock's smirk with a stoked fire flaring to life in her stomach.

"That's not a bad idea," she murmured, and sighed happily when calloused fingers fiddled with the buttons on her shirt – which was when she realised she had done them up wrong.

Distraction took the form of a ghoul with a heart of gold and a grin that made her heart beat.

"You read my mind, kitten."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for being there along the way, I know it took me a while to get here but your comments make it all worthwhile. I'm sorry for not getting back to you all quicker, but life (and workworkwork) takes its toll. If you fancied a little more, I did come up with another idea when I was supposed to be finishing my manuscript (and I promise to try and not take so long this time). Hancock gets into a little trouble and needs his two best girls to fish him out. So, if you're interested, there can be more adventure and more smut – because I'm a glutton for punishment and that sweet, sweet ghoul butt...


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